Promoting Foods to Indian Children through Product Packaging

Soni Pavleen

Keywords:food promotion, packaging, India, children

Abstract:
Packaging serves as an important mass communication tool to market foods in stores. Packaging
elements such as bright colours, spokes/cartoon characters, cartoonish scripts/crayoned fonts,
discounts and premiums are used to attract children and influence their consumption behaviour.
Use of these practices is widely researched in developed countries. However, these practices are
witnessed to be used in developing countries like India as well. So, it is important to objectively
assess the nature and extent of promotions used on food packages in Indian settings. The present
study is based on content analysis of food packages. It is found that Indian children are exposed
to a wide range of food promotions through food packaging. The extent of promotions used in
India is very similar to the practices followed in other countries. Implications of these practices
are finally discussed in the paper.
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