The Communicative Power of Product Packaging: Creating Brand Identity via Lived and Mediated Experience

Building on existing frameworks (customer-based brand equity, consumer-brand relationships, product symbolism/self concept), this paper forwards packaging as a product-related attribute critical to the creation and communication of brand identity. Packaging is posited to influence brand and self-identity via a dual resource base (mediated and lived experience); a conceptual positioning variant from the traditional single symbolic resource base (mediated experience) provided by advertising. This conceptual distinction is examined and data from an exploratory qualitative study are provided to illustrate the powerful role of packaging in communicating brand meaning and strengthening the consumer-brand relationship, especially for low involvement consumer nondurable products.