Packaging is not only a fashionable trend or something that will soon disappear. It is part of a culture. In business and marketing, packaging is a real battlefield between giants of different industries. The importance of competition has been researched since the 18th century. Let’s check out examples of industry giants utilizing it as a master weapon against their competitors.
Pepsi vs Coca-Cola
The war between these two cola beverage companies has been nearly constant since the end of the 19th Century, with Coca-Cola on top and Pepsi-Cola in second. Sales is just a statistic and does not take into account customers’ attitudes. Both trademarks have their own armies of followers who will prefer one drink to another, no matter the prices or anything else (except blind tests). Historically, Pepsi is five years younger Cola, and both of them has nearly identical ingredients. They have changed since 1890s a few times, such as in1903 when using cocaine was banned in the USA and Coca-Cola excluded it from the recipe. In the 1980s, Coca-Cola decided to change their brand globally and market New Coke. It was nearly a catastrophe, while Pepsi just upgraded their packaging and took in a lot of disappointed Coca’s customers.
Even Internet fans of Coca-Cola joined this competition and created a meme that ironically showed Pepsi’s rebranding attempts:
To tell the truth, the picture should have had this look:
Today stats say that Coke holds approximately 70% of the global market, with Pepsi at 30%. But Pepsi makes a bit more in profit from their global product line, including drinks, chips and other. The commercial war between them, including the packaging field is still on.
Samsung vs Apple
This is another great example how two businesses wage war for their customers. Some authors have even named Apple and Samsung as ecosystems, and this is something more than just a “popular brand” term. This means that every firm produces a lot of devices which aim to work better with each other rather than between them. For many young fans of Apple devices, Samsung doesn’t even exist. But in reality, Samsung gives a full-list of devices and makes a step forward with its innovations. This list includes mobile and laptop devices, progress in virtual reality, electronics and additional options and soft possibilities. Both companies pose themselves differently. Samsung is much more democratic in choices and prices, while Apple has posed itself as an elite and original product. For example, Samsung don’t restrict his users in soft options while Apple does. iPhones seems more stable. Year to year they are very similar with only additions of some upgrades. But these upgrades includes new operation system version, and you must buy a new phone because new apps don’t work as well with old software on your old iPhone. Samsung has more friendly options, but Apple gives you a higher quality product. The cost comes without Samsung’s versatility. Also many users are very disappointed in Apple products because every new update makes your device work a bit slower and forces you to buy a new product from Apple.
The list of Samsung vs. Apple may be endless, but they are always trying to compensate these problems with new devices, options, etc. This is a type of packaging again, and in most cases it saves their sales and sometimes even increases them.
And so on and so forth
Articles of this type usually give a typical list of comparisons, but we don’t want to copy anyone’s style. Here is something more important than a list of competitors. We can remind them about many other brand competitions. Starbucks vs Dunkin’ Donuts with their nearly religious zeal in marketing competition. Very notable “hamburger wars” between McDonald’s and Burger King: who makes their product less expensive or more tasty? Who uses high-quality meat, and who produces more healthy food? Then Nike & Reebok, Ford’s Cars vs General Motors.
Business wars exist from ancient times. The form and way of the many modern commercial wars took their shape in early-mid 20th century, and we don’t know about thousands of pretty local examples of marketing competition. But the most notable thing is that all of the methods or their types use packaging concepts to win a place in the hearts of customers. The packaging itself is just a sector of art, but when combined with marketing and creative ideas, it becomes a powerful tool for any business. This is not a magic tool. This is a part of art, which can be your ace in the toughest and high-rate marketing competition. Why not use it for your business purposes?
