What’s Your Approach to Packaging?
Mplanet 2009 speaker Mary Dillon, EVP and global CMO for McDonald’s, was in the news recently as she announced new packaging for McDonald offerings. The new designs, which feature pictures of the food inside as well as nutrition information, are designed to put more emphasis on the food inside. Packaging will contain taglines that might be interpreted as calls to action for consumers. The new Big Mac box, for example, will say “There is only one.”Coverage of the announcement reminded me of the important role that packaging plays in the marketing mix for the food and beverage industries. When I was covering the brewery world in the mid 1990s (a fun beat if ever there was one), bottle and tap design often were the two main marketing identifiers for the flood of craft brews hitting the market. Those also were the days when Coke rolled out its retro-looking plastic bottle, a major marketing hit for that iconic brand. These days, rival Pepsi is in the midst of a new logo rollout.
I would think that, in this economy, packaging will become an even more important part of the consumer goods marketing mix. Catching the eye of wary consumers and communicating important brand attributes through packaging would seem essential when shoppers are tightly holding onto every penny.
If you’ve recently redone packaging for your product, I’d love to hear how you approached it and what impact its had on your marketing and sales; feel free to comment here. Or stop by the Discovery Center at Mplanet where I’ll be interviewing conference speakers at Studio Mplanet, a stage in the middle of the exhibit area, and we can chat then.
Veteran business journalist John N. Frank is editorial director of AMA’s Marketing News, Marketing Management, Marketing Health Services and Marketing Research. He has also started or relaunched a variety of magazines, newsletters, and Web sites in his more than 30 years in journalism.
Posted by John Frank on November 5, 2008 6:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
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