Food packaging: the medium is the message.

In considering the marketing of food products to children, the role of packaging warrants closer attention. The use of packaging as a marketing vehicle is evidently increasing. Marketing analysts suggest two reasons for this. First, many food choices are made at the point of sale, so ‘the package becomes a critical factor in [the] consumer decision-making process, because it communicates to consumers at the time they are actually deciding in the store’. Second, the nature of the food advertising market is changing. Estimates from the USA suggest that expenditure on food advertising is declining, and that other methods of marketing such as packaging now have greater weight in the marketing mix. Food packaging has two basic functions. The first is practical. Packaging extends the shelf-life of the product, and makes it easier to transport and display. Second is its marketing function. Packaging is now an essential component of the integrated marketing strategies of the food industry. It combines all the ‘Ps’ of marketing: the package contains the product, packages convey messages about product attributes to consumers as part of public relations, and often its price, while also carrying promotions. By combining all these different aspects, packaging has become an integral part of the product.