33 Branding and Positioning, Packaging & Labelling

Kulbhushan Chandel

1. Learning outcome

After completing this module the students will be able to:

Define the concepts of branding, labelling, positioning and packaging.
Explain the need of the branding, labelling, positioning and packaging.
Describe the importance of these elements in marketing process.
Define need of these elements to marketer.

2. Introduction

Product image
Branding
Packaging
Guarantee/ Warranty
After sale services
Labelling
Positioning

Now let us deal with product related strategies that plays vital role in any marketing programme:

3. Packaging

The package of a product is an important means of product identification. The importance of packaging is increasing day by day. The sales are increased through the use of attractive packages. The basic motive of packaging is to protect the product from rough handling and weather. But it should keep in mind that the cost of packaging should never exceed cost of production. The expenditure on packaging can be as much as it can, but if its cost exceeds the cost of production, it may be out of reach for many customers.

Package helps the customer to make decisions as it provides the assurance regarding the authenticity of the product and its usefulness. It also helps in distinguishing the product from that of competitors. The decorative appearance of the package helps in getting attention of the consumers. Package is also necessary to provide convenient handling, prevents liquids to flow out, maintain freshness and quality. The package of the product is a silent salesman.

According to W.J. Stanton, “Packaging is the general group of activities which concentrate in formulating the design of a package, and producing an appropriate and attractive container or wrapper for the product.”

3.1 Good Packaging

Good packaging is very important as it is the first thing seen by the customer. The following aspects of packaging can impress a person to buy the product:

It should be protective.
It should be convenient to handle.
It should provide information regarding product
It should be attractive.
It should be environment friendly and pollution free.
It should be durable.
It should be light weight and have a clean look.
It should be simple in design and should be eye catchy.
It should be innovative and people should like to possess it.

3.2 How to Do Packaging?

The diagram shows the steps to be taken in pursue to do packaging.

Design: The first step is designing of the package. The production team should handle the design of the package most effectively. The outlook of package, material used, information about the product etc should be taken in concern. Customers are judgmental and are easily attracted by the product’s packaging.
Size: Size is second step which needs attention of production department. The size of packaging depends upon the size of product. The bigger the product, the bigger the packaging and vice versa. A product has number of sizes so the packaging has to be dependent upon the size.
Cost: The organization keeps in a mind that the cost of packaging is charged along the product should be minimum.
Test: At last, tests are taken to ensure the packaging is to up to the mark that the organization has laid. Tests can be related to suitability of packaging and regaining the effectiveness of packaging.

3.3 Kinds of Packaging

A various factor like nature of content, requirement of distribution, possible kind of handling, and many other factors decide what kind of packaging is to be done. The kinds are as follows:

Distribution packaging: Distribution packaging means to protect the content starting from production to consumption. This kind of packaging preserves the product from damaging as it has passed many quality tests.
Consumer packaging: Consumer packaging is useful only when it covers the required details and provide sufficient information.
Identical packaging: Identical packaging is done for the branded products. It is benefiting for same kind of products or brands. It is also known as economical packaging.
Multiple purpose packaging: Multipurpose packaging is where the heterogeneous or homogeneous units of products are placed in a single container.
Re-use packaging: Throw me not or re-use packaging is most suitable among household items like ghee, sugar, coffee, tea, etc. where the customers can re-use the container. Packaging should be strong so that it can preserve the product for large time.

3.4 Advantages of packaging

4. Branding

According to A.M.A “A brand is name, term, symbol or a design or a combination of them which is intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or a group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors. On the other hand, branding is process of finding and fixing the means of identification”.

A brand is a name or mark or symbol, number, letter or any other word or combination of these, given to a product in order to get a separate entity of the product. A brand is an integral part of the symbol appearing on the product. A buyer identifies the product with the brand name and the seller gets a chance to earn goodwill in the market.

Some examples are:

Some Shampoo brands are Dove, Sunsilk, Panteen, Head and shoulders, etc.
Some Soap brands are Lux, Rexona, Ponds, Pears, etc.

4.1 Kinds of Brands

Brands can be classified on the following basis:

On The Basis Of Ownership:

a) Manufacturer’s brand: A brand which is owned by the manufacturer and registered as a trade mark under manufacturer’s name is known as manufacturer’s brand.

b) Middleman’s brand: It is that brand which is owned by the middlemen or is registered under his name.

On The Basis Of Market Area:

a) Local brand: When a brand is used in a particular market area, it is called local brand.

b) Regional brand: When the manufacturer segments the market into different regions of a nation and different brand names are used for different regions, it is called regional brand.

c) National brand: When the manufacturer uses single brand for marketing his product in the whole nation, it is known as national brand.

d) International brand: When the manufacturer uses particular brand for marketing his product at international level, it is known as international brand.

On The Basis Of Number Of Products:

a) Family brand: When the manufacturer uses single brand for all its products and in all market segments, it is known as family brand.

b) Individual brand: When the manufacturer separates the brand name for each product manufactured by him, it is known as individual brand.

c) Product-line brand: When a business house uses different brands for its different products lines, it is known as product-line brand.

On The Basis Of Use:

a) Fighting brand: When there is very tough competition in the market and the manufacturer wants to introduce a low priced new product to fight the competition, the brand name which is used for such product is known as fighting brand.

b) Competitive brand: When difference in the products of different manufacturers available in the market is not significant, the brand names of such type of products are known as competitive brands.

c) Multiple brands: When the manufacturer offers the products that appeal to basically the same customers under different brands, it is called as multiple branding.

4.2 Advantages of Brand Names

The advantages of branding are as categorized as follows:

To manufacturer
To middleman
To consumer

4.3 Factors affecting the selection of Brands

There are many brands which are different from other brands and the consumers prefer them more than other brands. These brand names become famous and beneficial for the firm and the risk of being replaced by their competitors shatters down. Sometimes a brand is associated with a particular area which can be very helpful in attaining a strong position in the market. Branding is managerial function. It is general term covering various activities such as giving brand name to the product, designing a brand mark, establishing and popularising it. The following are some factors which should be considered for selecting and deciding the brand name of the product:

It should be simple, short and sweet.
It should be easily pronounceable.
It should be recognisable.
It should be suggestive.
It should be legally protective.
It should help in advertising.

4.4 Limitation of Branding

Although branding has many advantages for manufacturer, middleman and consumer, but it also has some limitations which are as follows:

Premium brands are very.
There are some products like fruits and vegetables for which the branding cannot be done.
Branding enhances monopoly to a great extent.

5. LABELLING

Labelling is important means of product identification like branding and packaging. Labelling is the act of attaching labels to the products. Packages and their labels should give buyers accurate information about the contents and necessary guidance regarding the use of the product.

As per food, drug and cosmetic act passed in 1938 that applies on cosmetics and medicines as well as food and drugs that states:

1) Quantity of content

a) Liquid measurements

b) Numerical terms

c) Stated a label, the names and the address of owner.

2) Label contains clear description of flavourings and colour preservatives or material in the container.

3) Label should be legal and must have justifiable claims.

4) Warnings of the contents contained in the product must be stated in the label.

5.1 Contents of a good label

A good label is the one which helps the potential buyer to make his decision and provides the following information:

Brand name of the product
Trade mark of the company
Name and address of manufacturer
Ingredients of the product
Weight, measure, count, etc.
Directions for the use of product.
Precautionary measures of the product
Date of manufacturing and date of expiry
Maximum retail price
Statutory warning, if any.

5.2 Methods of Labelling Information

There are two methods of labelling information:

5.2.1 Grade Labelling: When the product is graded according to its standard quality then the grade labelling is used. This policy is popular in canned fruits and vegetables industries. The production and marketing administration makes continuous inspection to packers and canners under which products are inspected and graded according to agency’s previously established quality standard. Inspector’s rate and grade product according to its colour, uniformity of size and symmetry, delete defects and clearness of liquids. A grade label specifies the quality or standard of the product. Such as A-Grade, Fancy, large, medium, small, etc.

5.2.2 Descriptive Labelling: These labels are descriptive in nature. These labels provide full information to consumers about the product and the producer. It indicates objective information regarding contents, uses, precautions, quantity, quality, date of manufacturing, etc. A descriptive label is generally in the printed form and provides full information about the product. The pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies use descriptive labels.

5.2.3 Combination Labels: These are the combination of above two labels. The use of such labels is rapidly increasing.

6. Positioning

According to Rosser Reeves,” Positioning is the art of finding out numbers of unique selling propositions, the one which will give you maximum sales.” Positioning is the plan or the benefits of the product. Some authors describe it as image and some describe as status in the market and various authors equate it with brand personality. Positioning is main decisions from which all other marketing and advertising decisions. It is an integrating concept which helps to provide direction and force to marketing and advertising planning, and also integrates various elements of the marketing mix. It is the task of marketing planner and advertising strategist to design each element of marketing mix to serve the positioning objective of the brand. The position of brand is its mass. This perception is based on its functional attributes and benefits like tasty, sporty and roomy. As well as it is also based on non-functional or emotional associations like reliable, traditional, smart, prestigious, modern, etc. Thus, the positioning of brand can be stated as the perception which remains in the minds of target consumers which reflects functional and non-functional benefits. The main thought behind the positioning is the idea that relating to product/brand that occupies a special or particular space remains continuously in the consumers mind. It is called renting mind space. For example: – soya milk as health drink. Complain is positioned as health builder. Limca is positioned as thirst quenching soft drink.

6.1 Four Components of Positioning

The four basic components of positioning are as following:

1) Product class: A product class can be defined as the set of products or brands which are perceived as substitutes to satisfy consumer needs. For example: The product class of chocolates, Cadbury’s Amul and Campco are clearly positioned against one another.

2) Consumer segmentation: In this competitive world, every producer has to find their closest competitor and should also be able to identify the various segments in which their brand can survive. Positioning of a brand and the target segment produced must be combined because brand must be positioned to appeal to a target consumer segment and respond to a brand that occupies the position preferred by it. Target market and positioning strategies are just similar to the two sides of a coin.

3) Perpetual Mapping: Perceptual mapping means representing consumer perceptions in two dimensional space so that the manager can readily see where his own brand prospect and in relation to other brand. Consumers are asked to rate a set of brands along given attributes or benefits or they may be asked merely to judge, by pairs, how similar or dissimilar the brands are. There are various techniques available for such perceptual mapping profile charts are fairly common in India. Research organizations offer hierarchical cluster analysis, multiple discriminate analysis and some applications has also been reported of conjoint analysis.

4) Benefits offered by the brand: The brand must offer a benefit which is of important to the customer. For example: Perceptual Map showing the benefits offered by different washing products. Robin liquid is attempting to distinguish itself from detergent product on the dimension of extra whiteness. Consumers can express preferences only in terms of benefits how much they are obtaining a specific benefit from existing brands, how important this benefit is to them, whether there is some benefit which they are missing, whether they would prefer to obtain a specific benefit in greater or lesser measure. Such preferences are also called ideal points when plotted on a perceptual map.

7. Summary

The customer never buys the product only. He buys a product what gives him group of value of satisfactions and the total package of expectations and benefits. The various component of the total product personality are product image, branding, packaging, guarantee/ warranty, after sale services, labelling and positioning. The basic motive of packaging is to secure the product from rough handling and weather. But one should keep in mind that the cost of packaging should never exceed cost of production. The expenditure on packaging can be as much as it can, but if its cost exceeds the cost of production, it may be out of reach for many customers. Packaging plays a vital role in sale of product, but it does not mean that the firm can provide bad quality. It includes product’s information and guarantee that the product is good. Good packaging is very important as it is the first thing seen by the customer. The main aspects of packaging which can impress a person to buy the product are information regarding product, rough and tough packaging and environment friendly packaging. A various factor like nature of content, requirement of distribution, possible kind of handling, and many other factors decide what kind of packaging is to be done. Distribution packaging means to protect the content starting from production to consumption. This kind of packaging preserves the product from damaging as it has passed many quality tests. Consumer packaging is useful only when it covers the required details and provide sufficient information. Identical packaging is done for the branded products. It is benefiting for same kind of products or brands. It is also known as economical packaging. Multipurpose packaging is where the heterogeneous or homogeneous units of products are placed in a single container. Throw me not or re-use packaging is most suitable among household items like ghee, sugar, coffee, tea, etc. where the customers can re-use the container. Packaging should be strong so that it can preserve the product for large time. Brand is a name or mark or symbol, number, letter or any other word or combination of these, given to a product in order to get a separate entity of the product. Some examples of various brands of Shampoo are Dove, Sunsilk, Panteen, Head and shoulders, etc. There are many brands which are distinct from other brands and the consumers prefer them more than other brands. These brand names become famous and beneficial for the firm and the risk of being replaced by their competitors shatters down. Sometimes a brand is associated with a particular area which can be very helpful in attaining a strong position in the market. There are many factors which can increase the employees’ interest in promoting the brand. Employees can promote brand through attributes like everyone is given a challenge to prove him, effective leadership and team spirit. While formulating labelling policies, it requires what and how much, information should be included on the label and the way of presentation. The manufacturer should not underestimate the fact that the consumers normally know a very little about the product. There is a difference between what manufacturer and consumer knows. In labelling, problems are not undertaken by the legislation, so the best rule to follow is to include the type of information, consider the amount of interest that is desired by mass of commerce. After deciding type and amount of information to be included on the label, the next question arises is relating to the information to be present. The main step is to present the data in a meaningful form to consumers. There are two methods of labelling information, viz., grade labelling and descriptive labelling. Grade Labelling is done When the product is graded according to its standard quality then we will use grade labelling. This policy is popular in canned fruits and vegetables industries. This production and marketing administration makes continuous inspection to packers and canners under which products are inspected and graded according to agency’s previously established quality standard. Grade labelling is done for differentiating quality levels from each other of grade labelling assigned to more products the prices of completing brand leads to vary more according to quality. Small packers and canners would benefit who find it impossible to carry on consumer advertising. Large canners and packers advertising agencies some trade associates and majority of canning industry are against labelling. Descriptive Labelling includes labelling imprinting upon the label of ingredients, weight, size, directions for use, recipes, serving numbers and other information. The product presented by word and pictures. The main emphasis is to provide consumers with information they need to judge the relevance and appropriations of product. This label doesn’t confuse the consumer by the symbols, letters and numbers as present in grade label. Positioning is the proposition or the benefits of the product. For some authors it is its image and for some its status in the market and other authors equate it with brand personality. Positioning is main decisions from which all other marketing and advertising decisions. It is a fountainhead decision as well as an integrating concept. It helps to provide direction and thrust to marketing and advertising planning, and also integrates various elements of the marketing mix. It is the task of marketing planner and advertising strategist to design each element of marketing mix to serve the positioning objective of the brand. The position of brand is its mass.

Suggested Readings (Books and Websites)

Ghosh PK, Sales Management- Text and Cases, Himalaya Publishing House, 2010.
Jobber David and Lancester Geoff, Selling and Sales Management, Pearson Education, Sixth Edition.
McCarthy, Jerome E. (1964). Basic Marketing. A Managerial Approach. Homewood, IL: Irwin.
Needham, Dave (1996). Business for Higher Awards. Oxford, England: Heinemann.
Kotler, Philip (2012). Marketing Management. Pearson Education. Kotler, P. and Keller, K. (2006), Marketing and Management, Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, USA
McCarthy, Jerome E. (1975)”Basic Marketing: A Managerial Approach,” fifth edition, Richard D. Irwin