Designing Food Packages to Attract Customers: A Systematic Approach

Abstract

Packages are considered an influential tool used to sell food products by communicating certain marketing messages to attract customers and influence their purchasing decision. This paper presents a systematic approach to design food product packages capable of delivering marketing messages intended to attract customers. The approach begins by identifying the main marketing messages that need to be communicated to customers. Next, perceptual maps relating customers’ preferences toward existing or new package designs are constructed to assess the package's effectiveness in delivering the marketing messages. After that, package design characteristics capable of embodying the marketing messages are identified and used as design factors within a conjoint analysis study to design new packages. The applicability of the approach was tested by designing new flavored milk packages. The results of the study showed that the approach allowed package designers to systemize their analysis of the effectiveness of food package designs in delivering the intended marketing messages, and to identify main design factors to be considered when designing a new package, and to use these design factors to develop package designs capable of attracting customers.