MEA: This new section initiated by Packaging MEA Contributing Editor Doaa bin Thabit aims to support and create awareness about the power of packaging for a good cause. If your product package supports any of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), share your Cause Marketing campaign story with us so we can publish it here.
Packaging design is like a magic wand that can upgrade your product tremendously and attract the consumer, who will prefer it if it has a better shelf impact.
Apart from influential visual design, there are other reasons that can lead consumers to make a choice –for example, attractive offers such as 20% extra content, a “buy one, get one free” offer, customisation, or supporting a good cause.
Supporting a cause may not just lead to an increase in sales but can increase your brand value as well!
Your product and the cause
Today, your product is like a citizen that seeks to be produced without harming the environment and to be packaged in recyclable material. But then the package doesn’t just take care of your product up until it reaches the consumer’s hand. The label serves a purpose beyond simply listing a product’s features. And it’s more than just a typical marketing tool to attract the consumer; it can also be a respectable citizen by supporting a cause. This, the power of cause marketing, can give your package a role in leading a CSR initiative.
Cause Marketing: Dual Benefits
Top FMCG companies have excelled in championing social issues through packaging messages. Take for example Tide’s ‘Loads of Hope’ label that conveyed the message “Tide brings hope and not just soap”
Ten cents from the sale of each Tide yellow-capped bottle was donated to wash and fold 30,000 loads of laundry for 25,000 families. The cap bears the message “You can help”, and directs consumers to the Loads of Hope website where they can enter a code printed on the cap to send encouraging messages to people recovering from disasters.
Apart from providing for disaster survivors, consumers believe the purchase of Tide represents better overall value because of the dual benefit they get from buying the product and supporting a cause they believe in.
Another example is Nestlé India, which changed the packaging of iconic brands Maggi, Nescafe and KitKat to support the cause of #EducateTheGirlChild.
Maggi has changed its tag line from “2-minute noodles” to “2 minutes for education”. KitKat has changed the visual of the finger snap to one without the break, with the line “No break from education”, while Nescafe changed the tagline “It all starts with a Nescafe” to “It all starts with education”.
The #EducateTheGirlChild campaign was aimed at putting a million girls in school.
Packaging for a cause can raise your product marketing messages to align with a development sustainable goal. This could be a call to action to end poverty, to protect the planet, or to ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity by 2030.
When executed properly, packaging for a cause can change the world!