Abstract
Packaging serves as an important mass communication tool to market foods in stores. Packaging elements such as bright colours, spokes/cartoon characters, cartoonish scripts/crayoned fonts, discounts and premiums are used to attract children and influence their consumption behaviour. Use of these practices is widely researched in developed countries. However, these practices are witnessed to be used in developing countries like India as well. So, it is important to objectively assess the nature and extent of promotions used on food packages in Indian settings. The present study is based on content analysis of food packages. It is found that Indian children are exposed to a wide range of food promotions through food packaging. The extent of promotions used in India is very similar to the practices followed in other countries. Implications of these practices are finally discussed in the paper.
Highlights
Marketers try to influence food preferences of children through product packaging
An analysis of marketing techniques used by companies in India demonstrates that most of the marketers use at least one promotional element on food packages to attract children
The most important finding is that almost all marketing techniques are found on food packages to suggest that use of packaging as a marketing tool is emerging in the Indian market
Summary
Marketers try to influence food preferences of children through product packaging. As children mainly focus on emotional appeals/themes to select foods (Page and Brewster, 2007), marketers orient food packaging towards children by the application of promotions (Hawkes, 2010). These include competitions, collector promotions and premiums; using nutrition and health related information and/or claims; use of specific colours, sizes, shapes; typescripts for different written pieces of information; depicting brand or brand characters and using packaging ‘technology’ such as addition of straws, how it open and closes, how freshness is maintained, durability, etc. It can be inferred whether Indian children need suitable protection from food promotions and in a manner as their western counterparts are receiving
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