Packaging provides the crucial first impression consumers get of your brand and product. It cannot be underestimated how strongly those first seconds influence perceptions about the quality of the product. The more eye-catching your packaging is, the more likely it is to end up in the shopping cart. As many as seven in ten consumers decide what product to buy based on their visual perception. The message is clear: make sure you stand out on the shelf!
Stand out from the competition
It is important to make your packaging stand out so that it attracts more attention than the competition. Packaging design is often developed with a particular target audience in mind, people you want to convince. So to stand out strongly, it's best to know which competing brands your product will be next to on the store shelf. Think for example of color blocking: thanks to a well-thought-out use of color you make sure your product and your brand stand out. Well-known brands such as Pick-up, Coca-Cola, and Tony's Chocolonely ... apply this principle successfully.
Create and maintain recognition
If you want consumers to recognize your product, you need to ensure consistency in the visual elements. If your packaging design is always constructed in the same way, customers will remember it more easily and recognize it next time. Although redesigns or uplifts are common in packaging design, you must use them carefully and thoughtfully. Always maintain a certain level of recognizability. One major brand that paid too little attention to this is Tropicana. The brand proposed a new design for its best-selling orange juice in 2009, but it became a big failure and received a lot of criticism. Reason? All recognition was lost and sales dropped dramatically by 20% in two months, a $30 million loss for Tropicana. Of necessity, they quickly returned to their "old" packaging design.
Five rules of thumb for success
Less is more, especially in branding. Consumers need to quickly understand what your product entails, so the packaging must also be clear, both in terms of copy and visually. Moreover, the design of your packaging should have a visual impact so that you stand out on store shelves and your brand comes across as authentic. Also, ensure brand consistency so that you remain recognizable. Ensure your product is shown on the packaging, especially with food, by working with photography or a viewing window. Finally, when first developing product packaging, think ahead to the future. From the beginning, design a visually systematic design that allows for easy changes in visual or other product information. This is the best guarantee of a consistent product family.
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