Packaging Quality & Size

The rising inflation is making FMCG marketers rework their packaging strategy. The sachet revolution has become a folklore in the marketing world, on how it pushed consumption into newer and newer markets. But the current need to revisit their packaging decision is not driven by the need to increase penetration, but from the need to control price increase. Though some of the companies are still working on reducing the weight & keeping the price constant, I am not sure about its efficacy, when the reduction is 5-10 gms , as in the case of biscuits & confectionery maybe the consumer will not notice but when the weight goes down from 500gms to 325gms it sure to be noticed ...

The second aspect is related to coming up with cheaper packing options, so that it helps them save money. This again seems to be a very risky strategy where in many categories the packing also protects the basic product itself , especially in the context of the mom-n-pop stores in Indian retail. They say that when Marico first introduced plastic containers for parachute they had to do a lot of convincing before the retailer agreed , because till that point plastic quality used to be so bad that rats could actually eat into the containers!!!

And overall the packing quality has never been comparable to the developed world , either in terms of quality or in terms of details on the packs. Are we moving in the right direction?

Moving beyond sachets to products for rural masses

This post was triggered by the exchanges we had on twitter a few weeks back (@futurescape, @RGambhir) on the issue of whether rural marketing in the country has evolved to the stage where companies have started designing products exclusively for these markets. Till recently most popular approach most urban marketers had towards rural was do some cosmetic changes to the product, mostly the packing (smaller ones) and then push them in the rural markets. And to be fair to them even this sachetization lead to a boom in these markets. But then it was still giving a step-treatment to the markets which has 70% of our population.

In the recent past Nestle and GlaxoSmithkline Consumer Healthcare (GSK) have launched products that have been exclusively designed for rural. GSK's Horlicks Asha is — a low-cost variant (40 per cent cheaper than Horlicks) for rural markets only. Asha tastes slightly different and is priced at Rs 85 for a 500-gram pouch pack -– close to half the price of the original. And Nestle has launched Rs 2 and Rs 4 products — Maggi Masala-ae-Magic and Maggi Rasile Chow, meant for rural/semi urban markets to provide low-cost, light meal fortified with iron. There have been more attempts of these kind earlier , but they have been more part of a CSR initiatives, but companies like GSK and Nestle are looking at these products as profit making intitaives. More towards the BOP than the Social Business philosophy.....

A few more examples which would fit in would be 'Tata Swach' the low cost water purifier launched by Tata. For more refer the post @emergingfutures on swach . Even Tata Magic would fall into the same category...

Hopefully with this we can see many more similar initiatives in the future .

Plastic usage in Everyday life - Marketing Implications

I thought I should start the new year by writing on something which would become a prime concern for marketers in the years to come - 'environment consciousness' . World over there is an increased concern on the role corporates/marketers play in maintaining the environment and accepting responsibility towards their actions and its impact on the society at large.

Though there is a lot of talk and discussion happening on global warming and climate change, many a times we tend to see these issues happening at the Macro level, something about which we as individuals cannot do much about. I will share a recent experience which made me realize how we as consumers add to these problems and perhaps have to think a way out of these issues.

The example is from our recent trip to Andaman, where the islands have a policy of zero plastic usage, if you walk into a general store you will not get a plastic bag and rather shown the policy (though some of the shopkeepers will give you a plastic bag, but then insist not to tell where u got it from!!!). There are notices in all beaches on don't use plastic and so on, the photo above should give you an idea of how well it is being followed...

Being a nature lover we have been consciously avoiding leaving plastic around , but this time around we thought we will be more strict in our plastic usage and try and monitor it. So we started the exercise of keeping all the plastic we used in a day in our back-pack and disposing it back in the dust-bin when we would be back to the main island after our trip. And we were surprised and guilty about the amount of plastic two of us were consuming every single day. We use plastic in everything.... whether we eat a pack of biscuit , drink water, eat chocolates, consume soft drinks, you name a product and inevitably it is packed in plastic....We were made aware of how much dependant we had become on plastic in our everyday life.

And future marketers need to look at this issue very seriously, because we need to find ways to break our dependence on plastic as the main source of packaging and move towards a more environment friendly material...

I just thought I will share this as a food for thought to start the new year, will look forward to more comments from you...

Wishing all of you a very Happy new year...

Packaging Changes

Packaging is I think one of my favorite P, and have written on it earlier also, link

On how it can be a source of innovation, size related issues, the utility it can provide....

But I have also observed the number of changes which companies keep doing with their packaging. As a consumer we start associating the packing and color with the brand itself. So how good is to change the packing and color, .. of your brand..

There are many examples, but a few of the recent ones include, the packaging change of Cadbury's 5Star. These changes force the consumer to spend more time spent on buying the product (and that too in a category which is more of an impulse purchase purchase) as one has to ensure that he is not buying any new variant of 5Star, and thus increases the opportunity for a competitor to gain the attention of you customer...

The latest change which I saw was the packaging of "Britannia Cakes". Earlier we use to have a packaging which was half transparent. Now the latest one is fully opaque and it has visuals of cake on it.

I don't think it's packaging had changed quite a long time, but then making a cake packing non-transparent very little sense , one i have to read the favor, if it is chocolate or fruit or which ever, which earlier i could just see through...

And in things like cake I would like to see if they look fresh and are not broken, rather than relying on the picture on the pack....

Change in packaging and other brand symbols are needed when one is thinking about rejuvenating a brand, but then the basics should remain in place, especially the utility it can provide, visibility as in the case of Britannia Cakes...

Inflation, Recession and the return of sachets.........

A few days back I had written on how consumers tend to down-trade when they feel the pinch of economic slow-down. The situation wherein a consumer shifts from a premium and more recognized brands to cheaper brands or private labels.


In the last few months in Indian retail the focus is supposedly back on smaller pack sizes on the back of rising inflation and fears of a slow down. The expectation is that consumers than buying the bigger packs would shift to smaller packs of their favorite brands. This actually seems to make sense in the Indian context as the availability of private brands is very low, so the options for down trading for a consumer is also limited..

Like as with the case of Henkel which has just introduced a new 400 gm pack of Henko washing powder at Rs 40 and withdrawn the 500 gm pack that used to sell for Rs 46. It has re-introduced Pril liquid for Rs 50 (425 gm bottle), down from Rs 55 (500 gm). For more on this , link

This is sharp contrast a few months back when many had started predicting the dead of small packs with the organized retail focusing more on the bigger packs..............

Packaging as a source of innovation 2

Earlier we had seen how quantity in packaging, specifically lower-quantity has lead to increased usage and penetration in categories like shampoo, oils.... now we will try and see the other benefits one can derive from effective packaging, apart from the basic functions like protection, making them easy to identify, and enhance their presence at the POS.

Packaging can be used as a way to assure the consumer about the product's quality, when one uses a see-through packing. The see-through packaging induces customers to try the product, and in cases where the nature of the product is such that physically experience is requires then the see-through packing helps provide a substitute . It also helps in those categories where the willingness of consumers to try out new brands might be low. This is being done by most of packaged foods being market.

Effective packaging can help enhance the basic functioning of the product. I have know many of my friends who would switch brands when they see a more convenient packaging with a competing brand. When a shampoo manufacturer comes up with a new bottle which can be kept inverted so that every time you don't have to struggle trying to force the shampoo down the bottle it will attract customers. The packaging used by Parachute Coconut oil increases the convenience for its customers. It has the option of a wide necked bottle from which consumers can remove the oil in winter when the oil would freeze and smaller trial packs.

In the Indian context one also finds that companies try to use packaging as a means of protecting their products from counterfeiters. The special crimp packing used in the case of Bisleri is to assure customers that the bottle has not been tampered with. And, even the fact that we as Indians like to find use of old products and if the packging helps us in that we would be more happy dealing with that company. This can be seen by how we reuse used containers of paints and oil as substitutes for buckets and PET bottle of coke and Pepsi finding it's way to the fridges of most homes...

The scope of packaging in enhancing the products visibility and eventually sales of the product is unlimited and thus I feel it needs to be given its due importance in the marketing mix...............

Packaging as a source of innovation - 1

Though packaging is at times considered as the 5Th P of marketing mix it has not received the attention it ideally should have. According to Harish Bijoor ( Marketing Consultant) "Packaging is an integral part of the brand mix and this is the day of attractive shapes and vibrant colors. Therefore, the brand manager has to consider a host of things such as shape, design, color, mnemonics and graphics, in order to make his brand more visible"

Packaging innovations can be seen from two varying perspectives, one wherein in adds to the basic functionality of the product through providing additional benefit to the consumers and second would be when it enables trials and increased usage by virtue of pack size (small). We have many examples of both the cases in Indian market, though the small pack as a source of innovation has received more attention than the other.

Small pack sizes have enabled marketers to reach consumer groups who were earlier not considered to be their target customers. The sucess of small shampoo sachets in rural markets have become marketing folklore which every student of marketing is told.The basic logic behind the small pack introduction is the understanding that the consumer though might not be able to afford to buy the full bottle of shampoo but wanted to use shampoo. And the fact that he would be able to afford buying it in smaller quantities, moving from cost of a monthy hair cleaing to cost per use to the consumer.

Though it is being said that the sachets would die a slow death with the emergence of organized retail , as in the organized retail context sachets become easy target for pilferage and they are not very keen on promoting small packs and would rather want the consumer to buy bigger packs. But in the market you would still find many companies continuing to come up with more and more small packs, like the recent amul mini butter packs, and parachutes small packs, and with the mom-and-pop stores dominating the retail landscape of India for a long time to come these introduction would only add to their turnovers ...

Second aspect of how packaging adds to increase the functionality of the product would be the subject of the next post....