Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

A cereal is a family breakfast food, designed to be a convenient and quick nutritious

meal that requires minimum preparation time. It can also be taken as an in-between snack or
for lunch or dinner. Most people will consume it as a breakfast meal. Its versatile nature
provides options to enjoy it hot or cold, usually mixed with milk, water, yoghurt or just eaten
dry. Cereals are produced from a wide range of grains such as maize (corn), wheat, rice, oats
and barley.

Purchase decision is the thought process that leads a consumer from identifying a need,
generating options, and choosing a specific product and brand. Besides that, purchase decision
making is based on consumer perception, whether it is based on packaging, ingredients or price.
Packaging is a whole package that becomes an ultimate selling proposition, which stimulates
impulse buying behaviour. Packaging increases sales and market share and reduces market and
promotional costs. According to Rundh (2005) package appeals consumer’s attentiveness
towards a certain brand, increases its image, and stimulates consumer’s perceptions about
product. Furthermore, packaging conveys distinctive value to products (Underwood, 2003;
Silayoi, & Speece, 2007), packaging works as an instrument for differentiation, and helps
consumers to decide the product from wide range of parallel products, packaging also
stimulates customer’s buying behaviour (Wells, Farley & Armstrong, 2007). The decision is
based on their hand.

Wells et al. (2007) said, packaging was used as a means of protecting the product from
damaged and making sure that the product could be consumed without being smudge during
storage and selling. Besides that, packaging also acted as marketing tool to build and fortify
brand equity. The dynamic nature of the marketing environment has propelled packaging to
have other functions which also act as powerful marketing tools. According to Kotler et al.
(2008), packaging has become most important and powerful tools for promoting products,
attract attention of prospective consumers and communicate the value of brand to the target
market.
 The physical appearance of product can strongly influence the perception of observer.
By through physical look the observer can imagine that the product are good or bad based on
their appearance. Most of the companies create the design of packaging according to consumer
nature. (Adebanjo D, 2000). However, Keller (2008) points out that packaging provides
consumers with a visible logo that allows them to quickly know the product inside the package.
Packaging acts as a cue and a reliable source of brand information. It conveys information on
pricing, quantity, quality, and also provides information regarding ingredients and direction of
use. Companies now concentrate on customers demand and use attractive packaging according
to the demand of the customer. (Silayoi, P., Malai V., Rajatanavin, R., &Speece, M. 2003).

This research will concentrate on hypermarket that are located in Kuantan, Pahang, to
study the impact of breakfast cereal product packaging on consumer’s purchase decision. The
main reasons to conduct this research are to identify the consumer’s purchase decision based
on the colour, convenience and aesthetic towards the breakfast cereal packaging. This study
delivers the understanding on the relationship between one (1) dependent variable (purchase
decision) and three (3) independent variables such as (1) colour, (2) convenience, and (3)
aesthetic of the breakfast cereal packaging. The purpose of this research is constructed on
hypothetical analysis of packaging components and their influence on consumer’s buying
behaviour decision. This empirical study uncovers the features, which are having the eventual
influence on consumer’s choice, when multiple and different choices are available.
1.2 Problem Statement

Gershman (1987) summarizes packaging with three expressions: packaging is the least
expensive form of advertising; every package is a five-second commercial; and the package
itself is the product. However, there is no agreement on classifications of packaging attributes
as well as the research methods used to determine the packaging’s impact on consumer buying
behavior. (Kuvykaite et al., 2009) In addition, the previous researches did not provide common
answer regarding the impact of packaging attributes on consumer’s purchase behaviour
(Kuvykaite et al, 2009; Madden, Hewett and Roth, 2000; Vila and Ampuero, 2007). For that
reason, it is necessary for researcher to look into this issue in more detail as to identify which
attributes of a packaging having the most influence upon the consumer’s purchase decisions.

Besides that, there is quite a lot of debate about whether consumer purchase behaviour
is consistent across cultures. Many industry observers, e.g. AC Nielsen, a leading international
consumer research company, believe that consumers worldwide are likely to have roughly
similar response to many FMCG, despite cultural differences (The Nation (Bankok), 2002).
Not all observers, however, believe that consumer purchase behaviours will converge – rising
incomes and extensive competition give consumers more ability, not less desire, to consume
according to their own particular cultural preferences (e.g., de Mooij, 2000). Some believe that
many basic issues are likely to be similar across cultures, while specific details such as response
to particular colors or themes may be interpreted differently in different cultures (e.g., Walle,
1997). To achieve the communication goals effectively and to optimize the potential of
packaging, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturers must understand consumer
response to their packages, and integrate the perceptual processes of the consumer into design
(Nancarrow et al., 1998).

Therefore, the aim of study is to determine how packaging influence on consumer

purchase decision in perspective of breakfast cereal where such study in Kuantan, Pahang is
still lack of .This research also reveals the attitude and beliefs of people about the packaging
they prefer as well as they do not prefer. It will also assist in finding out the contributing factors
in their choices as well as the decisive factors in this regard. The research attempts to get the
answer as to why consumers become loyal to certain cereal brands, whether they are influenced
by the colour, convenience or aesthetic packaging. The composite measures of consumer
purchase involve an integration of behavioural and attitudinal approaches.
 The characteristics that need to identify are the type of packaging colour that can attract
consumer to purchase. After that aesthetics, the effective packaging design can draw consumer
attention, resulting in more time looking at attractive packaging when making purchase
decisions. Lastly, convenience packaging, it helps the consumer quickly find the brand and
specific product or other variant they want, making their decision easier and faster.

Colour is a simple way to unify your brand across all communications with consumers.
As we know the choice of colour or graphic is important because the more attractive colour or
graphic the more it can influence the purchasing behaviour, so the type of colour that should
be use should bright colour promote a less serious tone, white denotes innocence, simplicity
and cleanliness, black denotes power, control, heaviness and expensiveness, red is exciting,
yellow is happy and green denotes growth and harmony, and is often associated with eco-
friendly products.

On the aesthetic packaging, in the design process marketers and package designers
must take account of consumers’ past experiences, needs and wants; understand how packaging
design elements get consumers to notice the package and notice messages on the package, and,
broadly, evaluate packaging design and labelling for their effectiveness in the communications
effort. Aesthetic known as beautiful, good taste and graphic that suitable for a box of cereal
product. Folkes and Matta (2004) find that unusually shaped containers that attract attention
are perceived to contain more product than containers that do not attract attention. Thus, good
design can catch the attention of consumers and create strong competitiveness in the target
market. Thus, product design is very important to marketers. (Philip Kotler et al. 2005 pp. 546-
549).

After that the convenience of packaging should be more friendly with consumer, for
example, the material of box is used from material that more easily to recycle and aware
towards environment. Other than that, make sure the material of boxes or plastic that keep the
cereal safe and fresh from any harm. Besides that, new packaging solutions for the cereal
market can help provide added consumer convenience and reduce the environmental impact
compared to traditional bag-in-box formats. Reseal able flexible pouches have lower energy
consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and solid waste generation than bag-in-box cereal
packaging. Ideal for dry goods, the reach of reseal able flexible packaging extends far beyond
the cereal aisle.
1.3 Research Objectives

The role of packaging is getting dynamic as a marketing tool. It is essential for marketers
to study more on packaging and its characteristics in detail to gain better understanding
which of the characteristics is the most important factor that can influence the consumer’s
purchasing behaviour. The objectives of this research are as follow:

(a) To investigate the relationship between colour of packaging and consumer

purchasing decisions in Kuantan.
(b) To investigate the relationship between aesthetics of packaging and consumer
purchasing decisions in Kuantan.
(c) To investigate the relationship between convenience of packaging and
consumer purchasing decisions in Kuantan.

1.4 Research Questions

There are three main questions listed in the study:

(a) Does colour of packaging affect the consumer purchasing decisions in Kuantan?
(b) Does aesthetics of packaging affect the consumer purchasing decisions in Kuantan?
(c) Does convenience of packaging affect the consumer purchasing decisions in
Kuantan?

1.5 Scope of the study

This study was conducted to determine the consumer purchase decisions as perceived in
breakfast cereal in product packaging. There is to identify what are the types of packaging
characteristics, which influenced consumer to purchase the breakfast cereal. Mostly
consumer purchase the product based on its packaging, because of that the requirement of
researcher is to identify what are the consumer decisions. So, researcher choose
hypermarket at Kuantan, Pahang as the target respondents for this research. There is
because researchers’ limitations to do massive collecting sample on whole Malaysia.
1.6 Significance of the study

The findings of this study can be a reference since majority of the previous packaging
studies were not locally-based which is Malaysia, besides that on the different country they
have different opinion because of different culture. The response of the study able to reflect
the consumer buying decisions in Kuantan. In other words, the results of this study will
provide a new insight to the local marketers towards the impact of packaging characteristics
on consumer’s buying decisions of breakfast cereal.

1.7 Chapter Summary

On this chapter, it describe the basic and overview of the study to give the readers a clear
picture of the characteristics that are affect the consumer purchasing decisions on
packaging of breakfast cereal. Firstly, it begin with the research introduction about
background of the study, the problem statement, the research objectives, research questions,
scope and significance of the study were covered in this chapter. Next, all of the variable
and relationship of variables under study will describe and discuss further in Chapter 2.