How to Use Packaging Label Warranties & Guarantees as Marketing Tools

The way you design your packaging labels directly influences consumer choices.

Packaging of a product is one of the most important aspects of marketing: If your product is not packaged properly to preserve and promote the product, your intended market base will not purchase the item. For this reason, you must pay attention to how you use label warranties and guarantees in your overall marketing strategy.

Instructions

1. Classify the product you need to package. For example, a good might be a consumable food or a household product. The classification of the product is the primary determination of how your label warranty or guarantee will look, as you have to make it clear what the product is and what purpose it serves.

2. Consider the primary objectives of packaging: identifying your brand; describing the product; persuading the consumer to buy; facilitating the transport, storage and protection of the good; and aiding consumption of the product. Also think about legal stipulations -- for example, noting expiration dates on food.

3. Decide what your primary marketing angle will be with the packaging. Four main angles to take include convenience or self-service, brand, innovation or affluence. With convenience, you market to those who want a fast, easy-to-use product, even if it is more expensive. With brand, you focus on using the product to show the public what your company stands for or the experience they can have with your company. With innovation, you highlight that the product or one of its features is something no other company provides in the same way. With affluence, you use the packaging to appeal to a customer's desire for status, such as pointing out that the product materials are top of the line or are associated with luxurious activity. The angle is what determines the market niche that is likely to be drawn to the product.

4. Come up with specific texts and images that meet the objectives and desired angle for the product.

5. Decide on the functional aspects of the label warranty or guarantee. These are items such as color, shape and the overall layout of your images and text. Brighter colors like red tend to draw attention, whereas darker colors tend to be calming.

6. Put your label warranty or guarantee together with the product. Test the initial packaging to see if it meets your needs. Surveys from a small test group of consumers and physical examinations and experimentation are ways to test. Both the production and marketing teams must be involved in this step.

7. Adjust the packaging if it fails your tests in any way until you have a suitable label warranty and guarantee.

References

• Pearson Education, Inc.; Marketing Management, 13th Edition, Setting Product Strategy; Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller