The obvious reason is to increase sales. The surprising thing is how large the sales jump is for goods such as groceries.
Jim Donald, CEO of Starbucks, explains why the company changed the packaging (read: as in printed a different design on the bag) of their whole bean offerings after stagnant sales in 2005:
"It just creates awareness that wasn't there before," he said. "we used to say when you changed packaging, particularly private-label packaging, that you'd see a 10 to 15 percent spike just off the packaging change," and the bump would last for about six months.
p186, Grande Expectations
That ...
twitter.com/dougw