Proceedings | Marketing area | Year 2015
 

How children segment product?

by Palita U-Prasitwong; Phallapa Petison
  
  CLSG International Conference Series 2015 in Bangkok

Abstract

Nowadays there has been rising in marketing’s awareness and targeting children as consumers. This is due to the recognition that children are actually three markets in one. They are not only current and future market of most products and services; but they are key influencer of their parent’s purchasing. To penetrate into this powerful market, marketers intentionally target in product packaging design because it works very well with diversified-need market like children market. From literature review, package can be treated as a set of various elements communicating different messages to consumers. Two main blocks of package’s element can be identified; visual elements (graphic, color, shape, and size) and verbal elements (product information, producer, country-of-origin and brand). The main objective of this study is to reveal how packaging elements effect children’s product segmentation. In-depth interview method and toothpaste product were adopted in this study. The 19 children in age 7-11 years who go to shopping with parents, were asked questions individually. The study shows that visual packaging elements have strong impact on children’s product segmentation. Among all visual elements, the graphic including; cartoon characters and brand characters (e.g. brand logo, brand symbol), play the most important role for children; following by color, size, and packaging design. In addition, it reveals that some verbal elements also effect children’s product classification; for example, brand name, flavor, ingredient information, and so on. The influence of packaging elements on children’s product segmentation is varied by age. The younger children in age 7-8 years give priority to cartoon characters and color. Many changes and cognitive development occur in children age 9 years. They can identify and classify adult’s products apart from children’s products by cartoon characters. Moreover, they show interest on some verbal elements such as product flavor and ingredient