Introduction
There are basic expectations from marketers and organizations on how they package their products to serve the basic purposes of wrapping a good as it waits to be dropped in to a consumers shopping cart. On the other hand, the packaging should be used as a marketing tool according to Lionel 2006. He says that failure of a brand to attract or catch the attention of a shopper who was otherwise not planning on buying the good counts as a minus for the marketing initiatives. In this paper, we identify one of the Goya product brand as lacking a good packaging in a manner to serve the basic purpose and act as a marketing tool for the product. Again we discuss how we can repackage the product so as it can have the attractiveness that marketing intelligentsias recommend.
Repackaging Goya Organic long grain rice
This is one of the many products offered by Goya foods. As a specialty meal other than the ordinary product, it lacks the excitement in its packaging that would be expected from a “premium” product bent of attracting the eating habit conscious persons. Again the coloring is similar to the organic brown rice. The light brown packaging of the rice does little to engage the mind of a potential buyer leave alone compel him/her to buy the rice as a different product from the organic brown rice. By labeling the rice as organic, a proper package should be in one way or another be representative of the product inside.
According to Hisrich (2000) there are basic factors to consider when choosing a packaging for a product. He identifies these factors as, visibility, protection, distributor acceptance, cost of packaging material, added value of packaging, environmental and legal issues and the probability of changing the packaging in future. For the organic rice we have here from Goya, the color is bad and the packaging all wrong. Comparing the package design with other packages for specialty rice that the company offers the organic rice is all wrongly packaged. The brown packaging represents nothing organic to a potential consumer. Brown is more or less representative of the soil and the fact that the rice is not obtained directly from the soil does not add up. A more “organic” color would be green as the conventionally accepted color for anything organic or natural.
To start with the, the shape of the package should be changed so as it is a vertical rectangle and not as horizontal rectangle as it is. This shape will be more imposing and taller than most products on the shelf hence noticeable. Secondly, the material should be changed form the current plastic paper to carton boxes. The fact that inorganic materials being used to pack organic material does not add up. The marketing point of being organic should be consistent right from the packaging material to the product itself. A green carton box standing vertically on the shopping isles will be more of an eye catcher compared to the current package. On the, package that has a green base color should be a well colored picture of a farm and probably a farmer in the background. The picture should stretch to the horizons so as to expound on the expanse of the land with the most natural aspects being made to stand out. This picture should occupy 2/3 of the front face of our new package. Information on ingredients and expiry dates plus the batch number should be placed on the side. I expect the side to measure around 4cm for a 2kg packet. On the right hand corner of the picture should be a blue/red star indicating that it is 100% organic in that no artificial fertilizers used, no pesticides used and that it is just grown naturally with soil and water and spare organic manures.
With such a package, I believe the brand will ride on its marketing aspect as an organic product and be more noticeable to shoppers.
References
Hisrich, R., Marketing, London: Baron Publishing House, 2000, pg 23