Imagine this: you are trying to make a choice between two brands of milk at Giant Supermarket. One has the brand’s logo, name, tagline, and other information related to the product, while the other has only the brand’s logo.
Unless you are very familiar and confident with the latter option, surely you will purchase the former one.
Packaging is an essential component of branding. In today’s highly competitive market, packaging has become the extension element of your marketing strategy.
The information on the label, the design, the shape of the boxes or containers — all these are carefully studied to maximise the market value of your brand.
Essentially, it serves as a tool to capture the attention of potential customers and communicate the brand’s message.
Its significance has several impacts on your branding. And here are 5 of them.
1. Establishing Brand Identity
Your packaging will ultimately fall into the hands of your potential customers. It will be something physical from which they derive a perception of your brand.
Therefore, make sure your packaging reinforces and helps establish your brand identity.
Packaging, as mentioned earlier, has always been more than just how you deliver your product to your customer.
From your packaging alone, your customers can get a sense of your brand’s personality, mission, and values.
For example, many GrabFood merchants, such as The Owls cafe, myBurgerLab, and more, have started using biodegradable boxes to pack food orders. These biodegradable boxes come from Team Recycler’s, another Malaysian startup that aims to ameliorate plastic waste.
As exemplified, the commitment to environmentalism displayed by the said GrabFood merchants reinforces their brand identities, missions, and values.
Using eco-friendly materials, reducing packaging waste, and communicating the brand’s sustainability efforts through packaging can help establish the brand’s identity as environmentally conscious.
Moreover, a brand’s logo, typography, colours, and imagery are all elements that can be used to communicate its identity through packaging. If your brand is all about fun and quirkiness, use bright colours, bold typography, and playful imagery to reflect your brand identity through packaging.
After all, you want to ensure the brand consistency extends to your packaging as well.
2. Attracting Consumers
Packaging is one of the major pieces of the puzzle to generate your brand conversion. It plays a crucial role in attracting consumers.
Your brand conversion can only take place if your potential customers pick up your product in the first place.
The packaging is the first point of contact that a customer has with a product. It’s the packaging that catches the consumer’s attention.
If done correctly, it can compel the customer to pick up the product and examine it further.
While the old saying goes, “You can’t judge a book by its cover,”, your packaging will be the first thing to be judged by your potential customers. Eye-catching packaging can trigger a consumer’s interest, and they may decide to purchase the product solely based on its packaging.
This is especially true for products that are displayed on supermarket shelves where the competition is fierce, and the customer has numerous options to choose from.
Between Nestlé drinks and some other brands that have a minimal amount of visual; or between nicely packaged strawberries and the ones laying around without boxes at all.
Therefore, it’s important to invest in packaging to capture people’s attention.
3. Distinguishing Your Brand
Packaging helps differentiate your brand from its competitors.
In today’s highly competitive market, having a unique selling proposition is essential, and brand positioning is inevitable.
Packaging can be used as a tool to differentiate a brand from its competitors. Using distinctive colours, typography, and imagery can help a brand stand out from the crowd.
For example, Coca-Cola’s iconic red and white packaging is easily recognisable and helps the brand differentiate itself from other soft drink brands. Similarly, Apple’s minimalist packaging design is unique and helps differentiate its products from competitors.
Therefore, investing in good packaging design can help a brand establish a unique identity and stand out in the market.
4. Facilitating Online Branding
If you stay long enough in YouTube’s rabbit hole, you will come across a type of video of which the main theme is to just unbox stuff.
This is partly the result of the rise of new media, which makes user-generated content a possibility. This type of unboxing video has since then become a video “genre” of its own.
Soon after, many marketers caught on to this pattern and invested heavily in their packaging, hoping that their packaging can prompt more user-generated content.
This is especially the case with electronics. The most apparent example is the unparalleled, sleek packaging of Apple products.
While you may be in a different industry, operating on a way smaller budget, you can still utilise packaging to facilitate your online branding, too.
Even a post or simply a mention of your brand on social media will be of great value to your brand. Whether it is a personal thank-you note or a small badge with a quote of the day in the packaging, make your packaging more interactive and something worthy of sharing with others on the internet.
5. Improving Customer Experience with Brand
What constitutes a great customer experience?
It is common knowledge to many marketers that it doesn’t stop at the moment your customers purchase your product. Their experience of unwrapping your product is just as important for your brand as the product’s feature itself.
Good packaging can create an emotional connection with consumers, and well-designed packaging can evoke emotions in consumers and create a connection with the brand.
For example, packaging for a children’s toy can be designed to be playful, fun, and colourful, evoking positive emotions in children and their parents. Similarly, packaging for a skincare product can be designed to be luxurious and relaxing, evoking feelings of indulgence and self-care.
Your packaging design should evoke a sense of anticipation in general, be it in the colour, visual, box design, or even your own niche packaging style.
The emotional connection with consumers will in turn lead to brand loyalty and repeat purchases.
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