This morning, I had to wake up earlier than usual to rush down to Shoppers and purchase four different brands of chewing gum for our marketing activity. As I came to the candy aisle, I was struck by the plethora of choices for consumers just for chewing gum. It occurred to me that the packaging of all these chewing gums are vital in making a huge impact to the consumer. Without their packaging design and shape structure, a chewing gum will just be a pellet or a colored stick, with no clear distinction between one brand from another. What I noticed in my observation of the chewing gum section was that there weren’t many brands to choose from, however, these brands had large brand awareness: Excel, Extra, Dentyne, Trident, just to name a few. Each brand was well-known in their own way, which makes it difficult for the consumer to give an evaluation of perceived value if he/she only looks at the brand name.
What struck me the most was Dentyne’s packaging. The choice of packaging color was different from the other brands (commonly light green and blue). Dentyne’s packaging had colors such as black and turquoise. Not only that, but their packaging was shiny. These two features really caught my attention. To me, that sets Dentyne gum apart from the rest of the Wrigley gums, and ultimately keeping the Dentyne gum while I gave away the rest to my teammates. This shows how packaging plays a significant role in marketing.