Product packaging for your product is more important than you might think. Not only does it have a direct effect on the likelihood that your product will be bought, but it also communicates many things about your brand, from the benefits the product will have on the consumer to what your brand stands for. It’s been reported that every year, 95% of new products fail.
If you’re wondering why that is, the answer is simple: customers put a lot of emphasis on product packaging since they don’t have the time to evaluate each product while they’re in the store.
The importance of product packaging is widespread, affecting every aspect of the business from manufacturing to marketing. We’ll explore six ways that will tell us the importance of product packaging:
1. Protects Packaging from Damage
One of the the most important aspects of product packaging is that it protects your product from damage. The last thing you want to happen is for a customer to purchase your product, take it home, only to open it up and find that the contents are damaged.
Depending on what your product is exactly, you may include bubble wrap around your product if it’s particularly fragile. While this is one of the main purposes of product packaging, there is so much else that product packaging does, especially when it comes to marketing and brand recognition.
To increase the robustness of the packaging, testing is essential. Extensive package seal integrity testing is often conducted to ensure that the materials used are safe and secure.
2. Promotes Brand Recognition
If you have particular colours associated with your brand, displaying them on your product packaging along with your logo will promote a sense of brand recognition among your customers. Customers will see the same logo and the same colours associated with it and will soon be able to pick your brand’s product out from the rest.
This is an important component of packaging that you want to encourage, since you want customers to gravitate toward your brand and shut out all of the competition. Remember to keep your colours and logo consistent and they will start working for you.
3. Enables Your Product to Stand Out
As you know, there is so much competition out there. In most categories, you have at least a handful of brands all offering the same product. That’s why it’s so vital that you use product packaging to your advantage. Use your brand’s packaging to stand out from the rest of the products on the shelves. Think of outside the box ideas.
For example, play around with the shape of the packaging. Not everything needs to be placed in a square or rectangular box. Also, consider playing around with things like font and colour to help you stand out from the pack.
4. Uses Colour for Marketing
Speaking of colour, did you know that colour plays a large impact on whether or not your product is purchased? This is because our brains react to different colours in different ways. For example, navy blue is considered to be professional, while white sends a message of simplicity. It’s recommended that you know what your target population likes and dislikes when choosing a colour (or colours) to be displayed on your brand’s product packaging.
5. Conveys Important Product Information
If your product is in the food category, for example, your product packaging will list out important ingredients and the associated nutritional value for your customers to see. This allows customers to quickly pick up your product as well as similar ones to compare the two.
If your product boasts less trans fat, less sugar, or fewer calories than your competitor, customers will be able to easily see this when they pick up your product.
If there is any additional information you would like your customers to know about your product, a good way to get your message across is to display it on your product packaging. Just remember that you don’t want to put too much information on your packaging and risk overwhelming your customers or presenting a cluttered image.
6. Creates a Important Customer Experience
Product unboxing videos are all the rage on YouTube these days. People will film themselves unboxing a product for their audience to watch. This is one of the reasons why you want to create an experience for your customers through your packaging.
For example, you might include a special jacket on your box, or some fun element that is an extension of your product. The better able you are to tie your product packaging into the whole experience your brand offers, the more fun it will be for people to experience your product.
You can also take product packaging a step further and use recycled biodegradable packaging. Not only will this have a positive effect on the environment, but if your target demographic is particularly interested in eco-friendly products, this will give you a leg up on your competition. Just make sure to display a symbol or write somewhere on your packaging that it is made from recycled materials.
