Month: October 2010

When consumers are faced with differentiated goods, it is brands that help them make quick decisions. Many strategies are used to create or reinforce brands in consumers’ mind while people always ignore the power of colours in branding.

In the short video, it shows why the colours play an essential part in branding:

(1)Colour is a powerful branding tool;  (2)Colour bolsters your brand attributes;  (3)colour enables brand recognition;  (4)colour evokes emotion;   (5)colour helps you stand out from competitors.

Every colour has its own deep meaning, and can help convey the brand culture to consumers. Colours can sometimes even stand for one brand like orange to Hermes, and red to Coco Cola. However it is not easy to build these associations without advertisements and promotions.

Packaging is one of the important factors that affect our purchase decisions, especially the wrapper and exterior carton which is referred as secondary packages in the textbook. Secondary packages always provide the product information that we need and give us the first impression of the product/brand. Branding images are gradually reinforced. In addition to the function above, packages also protect or help the products keep in storage. Some manufacturer produces packages which are not easy to open in order to reduce the cost during transit.

As it shows in the short video, we always find it annoying when trying to open those packages.Although some packages are not that hard to open, sometimes it is indeed inconvenient  to open without scissors. More firms have found the importance of ease of opening, especially for things like snacks. Are you going to buy the cookies for a second time if you cannot open it without scissors but desperate to eat it LOL? Absolutely no, at least for me.

Storage is another factor that should be taken into consideration when they design the packages. Innovations in design such as individually sealed subpackages are great ideas. This helps keep the freshness of the food and makes it convenient to bring.

I will never buy any products that are not easy to open or store. And that is why i think packaging is important to marketing.

It is an interesting video, which is a simple and basic explanation of the viral marketing.

It goes through different kinds of marketing strategies including door-to-door promotion, billboard advertising, TV advertising, letter advertising and viral marketing as well.

Enjoy it!