In fact, the main function of packaging is to protect commodities, followed by beautifying commodities and conveying relevant information. With the improvement of people's living standards, people are no longer just satisfied with food and clothing in life, but also increasingly picky about goods, including paying attention to the outer packaging of goods. Good packaging design should not only solve the basic principles in design, but also focus on the study of consumer psychology to meet the psychological needs of consumers, so as to make the product stand out from similar products and achieve the expected results. Commodity packaging has become an important part of commodities, and the design that meets the psychological needs of consumers can stimulate their desire to buy. Therefore, it is inevitable to study the relationship between it and consumer psychology.
1 consumption motivation
the most direct purpose of commodity packaging is to stimulate consumers to buy, and this purpose should be the first consideration when making commodity packaging plans. Secondly, even if consumers are not prepared to buy this kind of goods, they should have a good impression on the brand, packaging and trademark of the product and the manufacturer.
the consumer's decision to buy something is driven by some motivation. People's actions are generally dominated by certain subjective reasons, that is, motivation, which is closely related to needs. Motivation is the embodiment of needs under certain conditions and is transformed from human needs. In other words, people act to meet certain needs, and consumers go to stores to buy certain goods because they need them.
Motivation is transformed from needs, but people's needs may not all be transformed into motivation to promote people's actions. Needs are often experienced in the form of wishes. For example, many people want their skin to be healthy and beautiful, but if there are no cosmetics such as anti-wrinkle beauty cream, this desire can't push people to buy cosmetics, but only exists in the form of wishes. Only when a manufacturer produces this kind of product and makes consumers know that there are cosmetics that satisfy their beauty wishes through advertising, consumers will go to the store to buy such cosmetics. This is a purchase action driven by the desire to satisfy. Only at this time, needs can really be transformed into motivation and become the driving force of people's buying behavior.
There are different levels of human needs, and many psychologists have made in-depth discussions on this. The most representative is American psychologist Maslow's "hierarchy of needs". He divided people's needs into five levels:
(1) Physiological needs: eating, drinking, etc.
(2) security needs: the need for freedom in danger and fear;
(3) The need of belonging and loving: the need of getting the love of relatives and friends and starting a family;
(4) the need for respect: the need for honor and achievement;
(5) the need for self-realization.
Among them, the needs of self-realization include the need for knowledge, the need for aesthetics, the need for one's own growth and development, and the need to bring one's talents into play. Some consumers buy goods, on the one hand, for use, on the other hand, to show their status, education and appreciation. Therefore, when drawing up the positioning of different commodity packaging design, we should investigate and study the needs and motivation types of consumers in order to carry out targeted design.
2 characteristics of purchasing behavior
1) Consumers' purchasing behavior can meet both physical and material needs and social and spiritual needs. For example, the purchase of cigarettes, wine, vegetables, milk powder, clothing, shoes and hats is basically to meet the physiological needs of hunger, nutrition, heat preservation and so on. Buy all kinds of books, subscribe to all kinds of magazines, buy color TV, VCD, digital products, etc. to meet the needs of work, or to meet spiritual needs.
2) Consumers' buying behavior is sometimes dominated by one motive, and sometimes by a variety of complex motives, which are often intertwined to form a buying behavior system. The motivation to meet spiritual and social needs is often accompanied by the motivation to meet physical and material needs. For example, consumers with economic income of 1 often only pay attention to the use value of goods, and the requirements for goods are cheap and good quality. This is a purchase behavior dominated by a purchase motive, and the consumption behavior with rich economic income often pays more attention to the packaging quality of goods. The purchase motives of this part of consumers are quite complicated, and the physiological and physical needs are intertwined with the spiritual and social needs, among which the spiritual and social needs occupy a dominant position. With the continuous improvement of living standards and the changing needs of consumption, when establishing the goals and positioning of packaging design, we should pay more attention to meeting people's social life and spiritual needs.
To sum up, people's psychological activities are extremely subtle and elusive, and people often buy goods according to their own impressions. Psychological tests on consumers show that beauty and ugliness, elegance and vulgarity, concern and rejection, these psychological feelings are not only different for men and women, old and young, but also greatly different because of the preferences of countries, regions and individuals. Therefore, a seemingly simple commodity packaging permeates the theoretical basis of consumer psychology.
By constantly analyzing the psychological needs of target customers and establishing different consumer buying behavior patterns on this basis, we can accurately explore the relationship between commodity packaging and consumer psychology, thus improving the effect of packaging design and arousing consumers' desire to buy commodities.