For the majority of your potential customers, the first impression they get of your brand will be when they come face to face with your packaging design.
Creative packaging design is how your customers physically interact with your brand. So you need to do much more than slap a creative product logo on a box, pack or tin and expect them to have a positive experience. Toast can help at every step of the way, from reviewing your existing brand & packaging to creating new concepts and developing them into store ready art work.
More than a logo
Your packaging design should introduce your brand promise to new consumers and reaffirm existing customers good choices. If it is failing to do either of these then it may be time to check if the packaging is fit for purpose.
Checklist
Physical packaging must at least fulfil the following:
Stand out on the shelf and differentiate itself from its neighbours.
Any packaging has to consider its environment and who it is competing with for attention. You can develop a brightly coloured design but if it sits among similarly bright design it will do stand out, but rather blend in. Standout should consider all aspects from colour and form through to the physical materials & structure. A good example is The Grown Up Chocolate Company.
Make a connection with the buyer and get them to engage with the product.
Even when you lead the industry with a format that changes the market such as Garcon Wines new bottles does. You still need to consider how it’s presented, shipped and promoted.
Create or perpetuate the recognition/front of mind of your brand/logo/icons.
No brand should standstill, especially those that both engage their customers in the here and now, whilst their positioning uses a significant mix of heritage in their brand story. KFC is a great example of trying to reconcile those 2 challenges.
Fulfil the protective needs for the product – fit for purpose.
It is easy to forget, but packaging has to fulfil its primary purpose of protecting/containing the product. In a world where there is an even greater scrutiny on recycling, reducing and reusing – choices on packaging could spell the difference between success and failure. Tom Pom considered this challenge to develop its current packaging.
Does your food or drink packaging fulfil all of the above? If not, then it might be time to talk to us for a review.
Here at Toast we would review your existing packaging design against your known buyer personas and give you an independent assessment of its effectiveness. If there are areas that could be improved we will identify how their expectations can be met and apply this understanding to your packaging design.
