In this article from Package Insight, Dr. R Andrew Hurley, contributing editor for the Package Insight website discusses how some brands have managed to create a quirky personality by including humour or slightly off-the-wall elements on their packaging. He gives examples of brands that have done this and how it has helped them to generate brand loyalty.
He begins by stating that brand loyalty is the “holy grail” of marketing and retail commerce. He asserts that anything that you can use to create a “personality” for your brand or business will help greatly towards this goal of creating loyal customers who continue to buy your product. In some cases, where a brand has been very successful in creating a personality for their brand, their loyal customers(fans) have created blogs, social media pages which discuss the brand’s personality. In one example, a fan of the Snapple drinks had collected 13,477 Snapple bottle caps because Snapple printed “real facts” messages on the inside of the drinks bottle cap. Clearly this kind of online activity can only be good news for product sales!
He suggests that your packaging is the perfect place to try to establish your product’s personality. These personal touches can be shown on the primary or secondary packaging. Some products have their personal touches printed on the carton or sleeve whereas others have quirky or humorous add-ons printed on places such as on the underside of bottle caps or slips of paper inserted inside a wrapper. These extra personality elements can be amplified throughout social media, retail and ecommerce to draw consumers to seek your product.
He lists several examples but his favourite one is the personality of the Foobot air quality monitor. As this is a “techy gadget”, it is possible that he was expecting a rather dry, industrial- looking packaging with zero personality. He lists the reason that he likes this packaging so much as follows: “the copy for this product is really well written and phrased in such a way to give the Foobot instant personality. Its self-identification as, “Your good air guru” on the front of the sleeve evokes mantras, not algorithms. Even a hyper-functional element, like the finger hole to open the box, is given to heart-shaped whimsy and a note below it about how much the Foobot already likes me. The cheeky little message on the bottom of the box just drives home the feeling that Foobot is my buddy, my pal, here to look after my health and happiness”
Any businesses who are looking to create a fresh look for their packaging should consider whether adding some messaging on the packaging will help create consumer interest and ultimately more sales. If you are considering using humour, then look at our article on Funny Packaging
You can read the original article here.