Ensuring brand authenticity through packaging – the Apivita case

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School of Business | Master's thesis
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Date
2017
Major/Subject
Mcode
Degree programme
International Design Business Management
Language
en
Pages
98
Series
Abstract
The topic of brand authenticity has been receiving great attention from marketing professionals lately, while being even characterised as “one of the cornerstones of the contemporary marketing practice”. According to various studies, brand authenticity proves to be a significant support for the building of a unique brand identity and a successful brand route. At the same time, packaging seems to gradually acquire a new enhanced role which makes use of its communicative potential which is believed to be far from being fully discovered and used. Packaging has been considered a crucial part of the marketing mix and a significant communicator of the brand identity, which might also signify its capability of projecting and ensuring a brand’s authenticity. This correlation between brand authenticity and packaging elements is exactly what this study aims at exploring. This issue remains underexplored and since authenticity seems to still be a complex topic without any unanimously accepted definition, a thorough literature review on authenticity, its nature and types, and the suggested ways for its management has been the basis of this research. Since packaging is the second pillar of this study, a literature review on the roles it is called upon to play, its relation to marketing and its various design elements has been carried out as well. The objective of this study has been to explore how brand authenticity is ensured through the use of various packaging design elements. Therefore, the use of a single-case study qualitative research method has been selected, as the most relevant for the thorough research of the topic. APIVITA, a brand which bears various types of authenticity in its identity and which uses heavily packaging as one of the main tools to communicate its values and its identity, and differentiate itself from competition is the centre of this empirical study. Semi-structured interviews of APIVITA managers and partners were the core of the empirical data, triangulated with other data sources such as internal materials and corporate presentations. The main findings of the study suggested the existence of three authenticity principles that a brand should abide by: a) being true to core values, b) honouring the past, and c) transparency. These authenticity principles are applied through various packaging design elements, with some of them expressing more than one principle. Thus, the “being true to core values” authenticity principle is satisfied mainly through the layout, the text, the colour, the imagery and the packaging materials (design elements capable of expressing the brand essence), whereas the “honouring the past” principle through the logotype, the packaging structure, the colour and the imagery (design elements capable of creating symbolisms and associations with the past), and “transparency” through the text and the packaging materials (informative design elements capable of supporting the notion of proof).
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Thesis advisor
Santos, Fernando Pinto
Keywords
brand authenticity, packaging, brand management, brand strategy, packaging elements
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