Packaging has increased its importance in the marketing mix. It’s time brand managers readdressed it too, say design experts Touchpoint.
According to creative director at Manchester brand design agency Touchpoint Howard Wright, packaging has become more important than ever in today’s current economic climate.
“Marketers are cutting their advertising spend, there are more restrictions than ever surrounding food and drink advertising and consumers are less influenced by mainstream marketing channels, as they turn to their iPods, mobile phones and social networks instead.
Yet shopping remains a major pastime and consumers are shifting their ‘going out’ spend to in-home entertainment and trading up when staying in.
So getting packaging right is vital to compensate for the lack of other forms of consumer communication and to meet the demands of current social spending habits.
In fact, I would argue that packaging has become the most crucial element in the marketing mix, backed by the latest industry research states that 74% of decisions are now made on-aisle.
But let’s consider what packaging has got to do.
It has to:
• flag down the prospect in mass display, often in just three seconds flat
• stand out from competitors
• symbolise the brand’s core proposition and project the brand’s personality
• involve the prospect on an emotional level and make that all important connection
• hold the consumer’s attention for long enough for them to identify with the message, lifestyle and emotive cues in the imagery and communications
• prompt them to pick up the product
• get to the checkout
• be functional in transit, in store and post purchase
Increasingly though, packaging has to be active, communicating as if it were an advert; and has to stand out on shelves that are packed with indistinguishable products that are more similar than ever before functionally, physically and aesthetically.
I firmly believe that in today’s current economic conditions, brand managers should be refocusing their efforts in packaging to ensure that their critical element of the marketing mix has responded to changes in society.
If they get the packing right, the results can outstrip most other forms of customer communication; and effective packaging can not only increase brand impact, but enhance brand perception and recognition.
