Package Communication: An Investigation on the Premiumness of Private Label Product Packages in Turkey

Introduction

Packaging is a broad concept that has some functions such as preservation, protection, identification and containment as well as communication and promotion the products (Emblem, 2012). In today’s increasingly competitive milieu, packaging is used by companies as a communication tool to attract consumers (Ares & Deliza, 2010). They try to generate a purchase intention via effective packaging designs to take advantage in the market. It is a powerful communication tool to persuade consumers even with a single gaze and also without trying, touching or tasting the products. Thus, packaging has great importance for designers, marketers and also brand managers to differentiate and position the products (Choi & Coughlan, 2006; Simmonds & Spence, 2017).

The packaging is a non-verbal communication tool that motivates consumers to buy products. As Pilditch (1973) said “it is the salesman on the shelf” which means sales efforts and volumes of companies are substantially associated with the packaging design (Favier et al, 2019). The effect of packaging design on consumers’ purchase intention has been studied by researchers from different aspects such as color, shape, labels and typography (Ares & Deliza, 2010; Velasco et al., 2014; Machiels & Orth, 2017). All these elements that generate the visual aspect of packaging also develop a perception about the quality and value of the products. An effective design helps consumers to develop positive attitudes towards products (Underwood & Ozanne, 1998). Aesthetically designed packages generate a ‘premium’ signal enhancing the chance to be preferred and sold (Del Buono, 2016).

Revealing the premiumness of the products with the shape, color, typography and other attributes motivates consumers to purchase (Lyons & Wien, 2018) as well as generating a willingness to pay a premium price especially for food products (Nielsen Company, 2015). Thus, generating a premium perception through aesthetically designing is on the radar of all brand managers because of the previously aforementioned benefits of the packaging concept. In Fast Moving Consumer Good (FCMG) sector, the managers of national brands (NB) attach a particular importance to the premium packaging to represent an impression of exclusiveness, excellent and luxury as a high quality indicator (Mugge et al., 2014). This sense of premiumness results in higher preference when compared to casual packages and it also provides an advantage for national brands to compete with cheaper ones (Skaczkowski et al., 2018).

On the contrary, cheaper brands also show greater efforts to compete with powerful national brands to take a position in the market. One of these cheaper brand alternatives is called as private label (PL) branding. PL branding is a technique that represents the company’s own branding while the products and services are manufactured or provided by other suppliers (Boon et al., 2018). The quality of private label products was so low in the past which means they couldn’t compete with the NB as they were required to (Steiner, 2004). However, today’s market reports show that PL products are now significant threats to NB products. The report prepared by Daymon (2018) reveals that 81% of the US consumers are buying PL products almost on every shopping experience and this growth is three times faster than NB (Nielsen Company, 2018). As things stand, the competition between the PL and NB products will be harder and the gap will be closer in the near future especially with the use of the premium packaging strategy more and more by brand managers.