Packaging design – especially for products intended to be sold exclusively in a physical location: on a shelf in a store, among products by several other competitor brands placed within arm’s reach – is of paramount importance.
Research shows that 70% of consumers agree that packaging design plays a very important role in their purchasing decisions. Research also shows that 76% of purchase decisions regarding a product are made at the shelf.
To illustrate the importance of good packaging design, I have selected the story of a well-known brand: Tropicana. Tropicana changed their packaging to make it simpler and more minimalistic. Its audience hated it. That small change alone cost Tropicana around 30 million dollars.
Thus, we can understand from the above example that packaging design doesn’t just provide the rather obvious benefit of protection, information, and such – but more importantly, it plays a very important role in the marketing strategy of a product.
In this blog, we will study a few ways in which a product’s packaging can be utilized to help its marketing strategy in order to get purchased again and again.
Have you ever noticed how, if you are ever traveling by public transport, and someone has their phone out in front of you, it becomes extremely difficult for you to keep your eyes away from it regardless of what’s on it, whether it’s something actually interesting, or some boring commuter playing candy crush?
We have evolved from monkey ancestors, and our attention is drawn to stimulating things because potential benefits can be derived from them. It’s the same reason you open your phone 230 times a day to do nothing valuable other than checking your assorted social applications’ feeds. That’s your brain looking for stimulus.
So unless overridden by another quality of your product or brand, make your packaging interesting and stimulating. Make it so that people cannot take their eyes off of it on the shelf even if they want to.
Add colors, design, elements, information, shapes – overload the potential buyers’ senses. This is your best bet to lure your customer to at least pick up your product to inspect it, if not to actually convince them to buy it. Such a strategy also adds a great amount of recall value to your brand and product.
Add value. Make it eco-friendly. Help someone with something. Turn it into a game.
Another aspect that might entice your potential customers to pick your product over other products is by making the packaging itself provide value. Some milk cartons can be turned into toys for children. Some packaging designs are decomposable and recyclable.
Recyclability is a very important aspect of packaging design these days. Everybody wants to make choices that help the environment because they care – so help them fulfill their goals of a greener future. Yes, it may cost more, but it might surprise you to realize that even in a price-competitive market, the pricing of your product isn’t everything – it’s also about the impact that it makes in the minds and hearts of the customers as well as on the planet that they live on.
Entertain your customers. You can add small gimmicks to your packaging like an interesting copy, you can make your packages in various themes that might entertain siblings, couples, friends, family, and – more! You can put in lucky draw cards, or small, jovial predictions of the future. Just entertain the consumer as that too has the potential of becoming a lynchpin to your product packaging design strategy.
The packaging is also about user experience. How easy is it to carry, to open, to close? Can you reseal the bag if you want to? Can you use it to plant a sapling in it after the product is used up? Think of ways to improve the user experience of the customer, and that in itself will become a great driver of sales.
So these were just a few ways to make your product stand out on the shelves. Good packaging design agencies just need to keep one thing in mind: ‘Be innovative’ – ‘Think out of the box’. Change the way people think about packaging – surprise the consumers, that’s the best bet to make any product sell like hotcakes!
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