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How Packaging Design can Make or Break your Brand – Part 1

 

Plain package

  1. Treat your brand packaging design as an investment.

Many brands fail to ascribe enough significance to their packaging design and this is a mistake that will ultimately undermine your brand and compromise your profitability in multiple ways. An investment in high quality package design signifies to customers that your brand has value. When you increase the perceived value of your brand through distinctive, creative, carefully evaluated and well-executed packaging design you are able to compete with other products in your range and charge a premium price.

  1. Packaging Packed with Brand Personality.

Zig when others zag. If you do things differently and develop a really compelling personality for your brand using a system like our Personality Profile Performer and then bring it to life visually through all your brand collateral, in this case your brand packaging it can have massive shelf impact.

Assuming you’ve thoroughly developed your brand personality and what it stands for etc., you should pick out key characteristics of your brand character, tone of voice, story, humour, language and leverage them to maximum effect in your packaging design in a way that relevant to your primary customer. It’s these kind of details that capture attention, creates distinction, engender engagement and provoke emotional engagement, all of which helps build a long-term loyal and profitable customer base.

Fundamentally people buy with them emotion and justify with rational thinking regardless of gender, age or cultural background. You must engage your customers positively and emotionally if you want to avoid being caught up in price wars and retail dog fights!

  1. Study the Competition.

While it’s definitely important for your packaging to stand apart, you also need to consider the known ‘lingo’ of product category packaging: the aspects that signify what the product is, in a way your customers are already familiar with. Look to other successful brands in your space and consider what their package design has in common. This does not necessarily refer just to packaging colours, but also the physical or structural design, materials used, on- pack messaging and so forth.

Your packaging must be distinctly different but your customers must still be able to relate to it in a way that’s relevant to them and their needs within that product category. A confused customer does not buy!

  1. Opt for Clarity and Simplicity.

The most successful brand packaging is iconic and easily recognisable, and when it comes to package design, often less is more. Your product packaging should convey your brand as a glance and instantly tell the customer what your product is for. Developing a clear and uncluttered package design, with well-developed information hierarchy, will go a long way to giving your brand increased visibility in busy store shelves.

Watch out for the second part of this 4-part Guide in our next newsletter.

This Guide was written by Lorraine Carter of Persona Branding and Design http://www.personadesign.ie/

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