For a lot of consumers, good packaging boils down to how eye-catching a design can be, whether that’s the familiar colours of a well known brand, or a bright and bold pattern that just screams ‘buy me!’

For the packaging industry, however, it’s a far more complicated science to unwrap.

While most brands recognise how important it is to have strong design, many aren’t always sure how to measure the impact their packaging is having on their brand.

If there’s more to great packaging than bright colours and buzzwords, is there a set of criteria brands must have in order to make good packaging great and really create an impact?

Let’s find out. 

Could it just be great design?

The short answer is yes.

If nothing else, a well designed piece of packaging is one of the biggest reasons consumers will pick up your product. But in an industry worth roughly £3.4 billion in the UK alone, there’s a lot more that goes into design than just aesthetics. 

When it comes to designing your packaging, it’s best to ask yourself three important questions:

1. What is the product?

You might be thinking, ‘well duh’, but it’s common for brands to forget to think about how their product and their packaging are going to marry together. 

How big is your product going to be? Is it delicate? Is the product an odd shape? Will it need a custom solution? 

All of these will impact the look, feel and size of your packaging. 
Studies show that the success of a product depends significantly on how it looks as 93% of customers make their decision based on aesthetics.

2. Who’s buying your product?

There’s no point coming up with a beautiful design if it’s not shouting at the right crowd from the shelf. 

You can take consumer research as far as you like. And it’s well worth doing. 

Depending on who’s buying your product you might want to consider: 

Materials

For example, your target consumers may be environmentally conscious. Around 73% of UK consumers say paper and cardboard packaging is a key factor in their decision making and as much as a third of UK consumers have also rejected products because of unsustainable packaging. .

Affordability

How much are your target consumers willing to pay? This will impact your choice of materials and manufacturing costs, and the kinds of retailers you want to get your products into.

3. Where are consumers buying your product?

Not a trick question. In an increasingly digital landscape, not all products need to be sold on shelves anymore. 

In the digital sphere, a lot of information needed in physical stores such as barcodes and dietary requirements can be stripped away, allowing more room for creative and unique design to do the selling for you. 

If your product requires delivery, think about how that product will travel. Can it stack up to the likes of Evri and DPD? Consider the amount of room your product needs. How can you minimise excess packaging?

Could it be a cohesive team that works collaboratively?

Since many stages of packaging development involve the passing of hands before reaching its final being, it can be difficult to ensure the original idea you had remains when it gets to print.

Clear communication across departments

Outsourcing these stages to different agencies, while cost effective, can be a tricky process to navigate without dedicated and clear communication channels.

For good packaging to be great, everyone in your development process needs to have a clear understanding of how the final result is supposed to look as per your specification. All the while keeping an eye on how suitable the design is for mass production.

For example, keeping clear channels of communication with your chosen printers and quality assurance team during the design process will ensure your creative vision is achieved and your print remains consistent from start to finish.. 

Is it solid colour management?

The difference between initial concepts and the final pack design can be found most clearly in the way colours are managed. 

Managing your colours is an extremely important aspect of cultivating quality design. Everything from the type of ink you use, settings on your press, the quality, weight, and type of substrate can have such an effect on the shade and overall accuracy of a particular colour.

As you undoubtedly appreciate, these slight differences in colour, can make brand recognition especially difficult to maintain from a consumer base that is just as likely to move on to something equally eye catching and in some cases, cheaper and more effective.
In fact, a study found that colour improves brand recognition by upwards of 80%.

Is it location, location, location?

A product, despite its design, can live and die by where it sits and how it’s displayed on the shelf. 

In the fast moving world we live in today, retail shelves are filled to the brim with brands, each of them competing with the next to catch the attention of customers. 

It’s important for brands to adapt designs to work effectively in an environment that relies so heavily on the short attention span of the average consumer.

For example, an item displayed on the eye-line shelf should be light enough for someone to grab with one hand. It’s purposefully designed to be eye-catching and small enough to pick up. 

Another example is that if you’re selling a child’s toy, you wouldn’t display it at a height that a parent could see, you’d place it at a level where children can not only see it but touch it too.

When it comes to the effectiveness of a product’s packaging, there’s no use pointing to one single element for its success or losses. For brands to better understand how their packaging will affect consumers, the first step will always be to listen to them.

By taking their habits and behaviour into account, brands can plan a truly effective piece of packaging that meets the expectations and values of their target consumer base, driving sales even further.
If you’re looking for an agency that delivers expert advice and sound technical support on your next big packaging project, why not get in touch with Pulse today?