Packaging Design 101

Packaging design refers to the design of a product's container. Although this so-called 'container' serves a utilitarian purpose of protecting and prolonging its contents, its higher purpose as a retail salesman is the primary focus of this post. On that basis and for the purpose of this post, packaging design can therefore be understood as a promotional opportunity for consumer packaged goods (CPG) aka fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) products. In short, your package must say 'buy me' in the best possible way.

Package Design Objectives 

To sell effectively, package design must always meet the following 3 generic objectives.

1. Be sensorially appealing (this often refers to the visual)
2. Communicate
3. Persuade

These generic objectives should be developed and customized according to brand-specific and sales-related pain points and needs. For instance, a brand manager's common pain point is that consumers might miss the implortant cues related to brand differentiation, brand positioning and the unique selling proposition / USP in a packaging the pre-existing design.

• Example. There is a desire to portray a rich back 'story'. This typically involves details about a special way in which materials are sourced, manufacturing process, region and history (the USP).
• Example. The packaging needs to better establish consumer expectations. Perhaps the labeling information is not sufficiently descriptive for the consumer's level of product knowledge.
• Example. The brand already has legacy in the form of a pre-existing logo or logo idea that the business owners want to retain in the new package design.
• Example. The owners wants to elevate the perception so that the brand can be seen as premium so it can appeal to high end boutique retailers. Afterall, customers do not buy products, they buy feelings.

 

To be effective, packaging design also appropriately adapts to the product's stage in its life cycle and the stage within the decision making process of your target customer whose profile (avatar) you have already established. (The buying decision process has 5 stages: 1. Problem / need awareness, 2. Solution options research, 3. Consideration / evaluation of alternatives, 4. buy decision and 5. post purchase evaluation). The abovementioned 3 generic objectives have overlapping elements. Consequently, use them as a type of checklist to double check the adequacy of your approach of each objective. ...

Your package design process

Ground 0

In short, before tackling these 3 objectives, collect background brand (related) information that will motivate the design. This includes visual (and other sensorial) inspirations and conceptual research. Examples of 'conceptual research' include knowledge about the brand's sociocultural or geographic setting that will appeal to consumers. 

1. Be sensorial! (ie be appealing to the five senses which mostly involves the visual and tactile appeal)

Make it easy for consumers to notice or find your product on a shelf amidst noisy competition. To this end, use visual assets related to your brand personality like logo, mascots, color and even packaging materials. Considering what design trends already work for competitors, ie without copying the competition, collect samples of competitive brand packaging for analysis. Considering your target market's avatar psychographics, what visuals will resonate with a consumer with his or her specific problem x?

Among other things, visibility may respond to the degree of your market's 'awareness', ie of the brand awareness, the product and even the problem. Consider the product life cycle and your market's buying decision stage. For a new product, especially one for which there is little to no awareness of the product and even the problem, the 'visibility' objective deserves even more of your attention than otherwise. If your market is not already aware of their problem, your visuals will need to focus on highlighting the problem. Consider not only the obvious needs but subconscious ones that motivate the obvious motivator. For instance, consumers often seek after physical beauty products because they feel a need to comply with social beauty standards in order to be liked and belong. This is why advertisements may use abstract imagery like people attracting the opposite sex or connecting with friends even though the product is not directly related to these concepts. 

An option is to also use a disruptive style by exaggerating elements. 

Example: extreme colors, shapes, sizes, fonts. Sexy clothing for Valentines may come in red packaging because red is associated with amorous passion. Retailers sometimes stock competing brands next to each other on shelves if their colors are highly contrasting. Consider doing this with your market leader, especially if your product quality is already on point.  

Example: emotive images. 

Example: minimalism. Beware that minimalism carries brand risk in that it compromises your ability to meet the next objective of communicating your brand's message. 

Case: The Apple computers brand has such high levels of brand awareness, often 'unaided brand recall' that its packaging can afford to be highly minimalistic in ways that competing brands with less brand awareness can not afford to be. Its brand is so well known that it no longer needs to communicate its benefits to consumers.

Case: 

Example: Your market may be unaware of side effects of current products. In some cases, this is because the side effects occur insidiously, like plastic packaging that has nowhere to go after being dumped or even recycled. Although this problem is extrinsic to the product, for some target markets, it is noteworthy because it resonates strongly with their core values. Brand managers may use compostable packaging and or symbols to highlight the problem or suggest they offer the solution. Three leaves that resemble arrows and arranged in a circle are often used to replace the symbol of 3 arrows in a circle to suggest a product's packaging is recyclable. 

Having said all the above, when undertaking this process, save yourself time! Rather than attempt to complete the perfect visuals upfront, focus on completing a basic template called a 'design skeleton'. Function before form! The skeleton should use a single basic font and only grayscale tones. 

The skeleton applies basic brand information from insights research (like brand name, taglines, key claims and other key messages) to the basics of the form (like the package shape and dimensions). It is only after establishing the design skeleton should you consider the color, imagery, pretty fonts and so on. 

2. Communicate for the brand!

Communicate the following 4 messages. However, whenever possible, do so within the context of keywords that your target uses to research information related to solution options.

1. your brand. Example. When surveyed, consumers cite large legible brandnames as one element that makes brands recognizable.

2. functional benefits. Example: If you are selling an acne treatment, your target market is likely to use search keywords (online or in a store) like 'how to get rid of pimples?', 'how to control excess oil on my face?' and 'best exfoliants'. When the packaging plays a functional role in the consumption of the product, the experience of using it also influences product and brand perceptions. Examples include cosmetic product pumps, flip versus screw caps. BEWARE of restrictions imposed by regulatory bodies for labeling claims in your industry.

3. reason to trust the brand. This often involves using the influence principle of authority, ie highlighting associations and credentials like training and other accolades that are widely considered authorities in the industry. Case: One way in which CeraVe influences buyers is with their tagline 'made with dermatologists'. Example: FDA approved. Other ways in which trust is built is through social proof; cause-related core values for mission-driven brands. 

Example: Tagline! Your purchase helps us to employ mothers who are unable to go out to work.

4. emotional benefits & end result 

Communication should be consistent with your brand personality. Examples include premium cues like dark colors, shiny accents. 

3. Persuade!

This objective overlaps with communicating the brand in a trustworthy way. As previously mentioned, it is ideal to apply principles of influence.

Persuasion is typically achieved with key purchase motivation factors. These are often the UVP that differentiates and positions the brand in a favorable way relative to the competition based on a key attribute.

'voted #1 [key role]'; 'voted most [key attribute] by the [industry experts]';

Recap of steps for product package design

1. Conduct background strategic brand research. This research should include: brand personality especially as it relates to: visual inspirations (which may be external, as from Pinterest, movies, competition, etc) and conceptual research. Collect and analyze samples of successful direct competitors. Gather various ideas so that your graphic artist can create different design options from which you can select. Also know the life cycle. This step may require a lot of collaboration between the graphic designer and brand manager. Create a list of keywords, taglines, etc for submission to your graphic designer for inclusion in the label content.
2. Expressly agree with all involved in your process on the 3 design objectives within the context of the brand manager's pain point(s).
3. Create design skeleton or ask your graphic artist to do this for you. When handing over details, parties should reconfirm understanding along the way. One way of ensuring this is for the recipient of information to (re)assure the other that (s)he understands, often by repeating details just provided.
4. Using brand research, have your graphic artist propose several rough design concept options in the 'first round'. A 'first round' is a presentation of usually 3 - 4 options. It is a survey that seeks to to eliminate less desirable versions. Respondents are the business owner or brand manager. If you are doing the design on your own, your respondents may be your brand team and even beta testers (in new product development) from your target market members. The artist should have proposed the number of permissable edits beforehand and will advise whether your edit requests are possible. Whenever possible, avoid first rounds with only 1 concept option because that does not provide safety nets if the brand manager does not like a proposed concept. For creative motivation, perform an (in)formal demand matrix, a positioning tool for sales channels based on the price level and how many customers are likely. Complete this task with competing brands, including leaders. Look at the packaging designs of successful competing brands in your desired quadrant for packaging design ideas (which has been very strongly related to price elasticity of demand for certain types of locations).
5. The design should go into the refinement stage in which edits are done based on the graphic artist's proposed options.

CONTENT RELATED TO PACKAGING DESIGN

• The 6 Principles of influence
• Consider your target market avatar's 'buyer personality type' ('assertives', 'analyticals', 'amiables' and 'expressives').
• Brand voice and tone
• Social media management
• Brand positioning 
• Use a brand style manual to communicate your brand with graphic designers.
• Before proceeding, gather as much insight as possible about the branding. This includes establishing the brand personality, positioning in the competitive landscape, main communication objectives, etc.
• In-store / Point of purchase displays / POP displays
• Brand style guidelines 
• Color palettes 101 & setting the rules for the brand style guidelines
• Fun fact. The chocolate brand Cadbury;s, received many complaints that their dairy milk bar no longer tasted how it used to. However, the only thing that had changed at all was the shape of the chocolate bar. No changes had been made to the recipe.
• As pictured below, dielines are 2D pre-press (ie pre-printing preparation) representations of your 3D package design. A dieline looks like a disassembled box whose seams have been unglued so that the entire structure lays flat. It serves as a guideline for printers. For instance, it shows 'bleed lines' (often in green), 'cut lines' (often solid red or black lines) and the 'safe zone line' (usually in blue). Bleed lines extend just slightly beyond the edge of a panel. The edge of images or other visible media should be set up against these lines as a safeguard, ie just in case the printer shifts. This ensure that such slight printer errors will not result in panels with unprinted edges. The safe zone line is a guideline to ensure that anything that absolutely must be visible is placed within its boundaries, thereby preventing cuch content from being missed by minor printing errors.

Brand Positioning 101

Earlier, I discussed the unique value proposition (UVP) concept, ie a special aspect of your offering that provides true or perceived value (emotional and functional benefits) to consumers. However, this post will extend that discussion to consider how your brand's UVP fits or is positioned within the context of your competitive market landscape. When measured properly, brand positioning aka benchmarking can even allow you to plot your and competing brands on a single graph using each brand's score where each score is based on consumers' perceptions of UVP. The scatter plot graph will therefore allow you to see the relative position of each brand. To further clarify; the graph would represent said 'market landscape' and the UVP score of each brand would be positioned as a plot point (perhaps using the brand's logo) on that graph.

On that basis, can you now see how 'brand positioning' may be understood to be the strategic process of creating competitive advantage in consumers' mind, especially at the 'evaluating alternatives' phase of their buying decision? Continual horizon scanning and proactive brand positioning or repositioning are the cornerstones for creating and maintaining a premium brand.

Why is brand positioning important?

The point of brand positioning is answering the question 'What value proposition sets (or can set) you apart from the competition?' Let's face it! If a brand is to be competitive to enjoy high income streams from an appreciative market, it needs bragging rights, about something.

Just imagine how, if your brand positioning makes you a clear outlier, your brand will be more 'recognizable' or better yet, can be 'recalled' (the 2 measures of 'brand awareness'). In turn, a brand with greater brand awareness is one that is sought after more.

As discussed previously, de-commoditizing, aka differentiating your product, even if it is an otherwise boring commodity allows you to communicate value and justify your price. 

Brand positioning is the sine qua non for effective market communication. It is afterall a means of using your bragging rights to establish your brand as a leader its unique way within the collective consumer mind. 

Differentiate on the basis of attributes that your customers use  for measuring significant value 

When customers compare brands, they do so on the basis of single variables (at a time) that are meaningful to them. For instance, legal customers may use the extent to which lawyers listen to them analytically, a form of customer service. A car buyer would not have the same criteria for a car salesman, even if he is concerned with customer service. In short, the positioning must be customized for each industry, segment, brand, product, etc.

Some attributes that are commonly used for brand positioning include the following. 

• product quality
• customer service
• convenience
• price
• differentiation

To illustrate, the quality-based positioning approach, companies may highlight their superior quality through product performance (perhaps in resolving a pain point), compliance with well established industry standards for quality (like ISO certification), exceptional craftsmanship, raw materials that meet well esteemed specifications, sustainable practices, small-batch production, ... in short, whatever it is that defines 'quality' in their industry. 

What attributes are important in your industry? How does your brand offer something that feels like a breath of fresh air to customers? For instance, if your industry offers a product  or service whose implementation or use are renowned as being complicated, does your brand offer strong customer support that makes the process much easier? 

Think insurance policies and their tedium! This is arguably the reason why Geico selected their famous 'grunt test' campaign. They wanted to show the world how their sign up process was so easy, that even a grunting cave man can understand it.

Attributes of focus should also change with emerging market trends. However, attributes can be anything that really matters to your consumers. Was your brand the first of its kind which is a fact that your customers value? Are you just the most popular? Are you the only one that responded to certain events that are near and dear to the hearts of your target market? Have you done a SWOT analysis of your competition and want to use a campaign to directly call out a competitior's weakness?

Most industries have multiple key attributes that can be simultaneously represented on 'perceptual maps' like below. Like in this example, consumers rate each key attribute so that brand managers can observe the relative position of all competing industry players. Each brand manager then contemplates "Do I like my current brand position?" "Is there a gap in the market that I can fill?" 

In the example above, taste and being natural are the 2 key attributes for 3 key players in the sugar industry. A gap exists in the quadrant for more tasty and less natural, which would be better than Equal's current position of low ratings on both attributes. Should Equal fill that gap? However, the brand manager may also consider shifting the brand's positioning to the right if trends emerge in which consumers are happy to sacrifice taste for more natural products. If Equal's brand manager wants to respond to that trend, that brand may produce a variant that is more natural, perhaps only to a marginal extent to perhaps offer a natural option that is likely more affordable than Truvia. 

The SWOT analysis of industry players (ie strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) can provide many attribute ideas. 

Repositioning

Repositioning is brand risk management. Brand managers must continuously scan the horizon for changes that warrant significant branding response. Common prompts include changing target market (perceived) needs, improvements in your competitors' UVP, new product substutes and waning consumer interest. 

Case study: Perceptions of the Old Spice brand changed over time. Specifically, the brand was unable to attract younger male demographic because it was associated with 'old men'. To counteract this, the brand changed its image. It appealed to younger men by changing its personality with style elemnts like younger very masculine male models and campaign slogans like 'Smell like a man, man!' are cases in point. This not only changed the brand's demographic by raised sales by 27% within only the first 6 months of the campaign's launch in 2010 but also emerged its category leader as a consequence.

Case study: Starbucks lost over 28% profits over 2 years following the 2008 economic crisis. In the face of economic hardship, consumer attitudes changed. They began to see coffee as a commodity - an ostensible existential nightmare for a brand that built on presenting coffee as a luxury. Consumers were opting for cheaper options like McDonalds coffee. In response to this risk management 'white swan', the brand hired BBDO, an agency that specializes in branding to reconvince the market that their coffee was worth the extra cost. Its campaign included slogans like "If your coffee isn't perfect, we'll make it over. If it still isn't perfect, you must not be in a Starbucks." and "Beware of a cheaper cup of coffee. It comes with the price". In short, the brand used the quality positioning strategy. 

Case study: McDonalds recognized that consumer perceptions were becoming disfavorable. Specifically, consumers began to perceive it as unhealthy. The brand improved this reputation with healthier options like salads.

The brand positioning statement. 

A brand positioning statement briefly 1) identifies the target market, 2) describes benefits / value to the target and 3) implies current relative exploitable weakness in your competition or industry. This statement can be used for recreating mission statements for internal and or external customers. 

Examples.

• For serious athletes, Nike gives confidence that provides the perfect shoe for every sport.
• To cultured millenials, Starbucks is a premium coffee house that adds an intimate and valuable experience to a consumer's life style by integrating caffeine with a comproftable environment.

Steps: How to establish your brand positioning

• Know the key industry attributes and how to measure them.
• In most cases, a variable is simply a contiuum of the same thing. For instance 'price' is either low or high or range in dollar values. 
• In footwear, one key attribute is a categorical scale that has 'performance' and 'fashion' on either of its extremes. ('Correspondence analysis' is used for statistically for mapping categorical variables).  
• Determine your current brand positioning. This can be an informal 'back of an envelope' exercise and or part of a formal beta testing survey. 
• Analyze your compeitition; identify them and perform SWOT analyses for them (while also incorporating into them considerations of the PESTLE analsyis). In addition to this simple video, see the other more comlex discuss at the end of this post.  
• Analyze your industry for weaknesses that you can resolve. 
  • When Geico realized that an inherent weakness in its (insurance) industry was that consumers found the standard application process upsettingly difficult, they differentiated the brand by providing the value of convenience with an application process that was uniquely so much simpler that it could even pass a cave man's 'grunt test'.  
• If any, know your industriy's inherent shortcomings.
• Know your UVP
• Create a positioning statement for a promotional campagin. 
• Establish a suitable positioning strategy. This is particularly important when your attribute-related market positioning is similar to that of competing brands. In such cases, select a strategy as the basis of differentiation. Strategies may be one of the other attributes like one listed above; price, convenience and so on. The price-quality trade-off is very common. 
• M&Ms emphasized the product quality by stressing the product's durability, safety, reliability. Its tagline "Melts in your mouth, not in your hands" is consistent with that. 

                   

• Integrate your brand's differentiating qualities throughout your brand's organization, especially into all elements of the front line including brand personality like brand style, a 'differentiating tagline' and so on.
• Constantly evaluate how well your positioning is working.
• Scan the horizon for emerging trends that can change the nature of the market landscape and, by so doing, present new risks (opportunities or threats). 
• Reposition to adapt to emerging trends and circumstances. This often involves changing key brand elements like the product (qualities), price and even brand personality. 

     

• Avoid brand extensions that are generally unsuccessful and, over time, may even dilute the power of your brand position in the mind of consumers. Line extensions may include extending the product mix to include other types of products. The risk appears to occur when brands attempt to do something contrary to the key characteristic  that helped to gain its position with clarity in the minds of consumers. Examples include the following. 
• Bayer's was a leader as a pain relieving medicine because of 'Aspirine'. However, a subsequent attempt to use the well established name to introduce an alternative non-Aspirine pain reliever 'Bayer Migraine' failed.
• Dial was a well established brand for soap. However, when it introduced deodorant, the deodorant failed.
• My gag reflex is still strong every time I remember the case of Colgate, a well established brand renowned for clearn dirty mouths that then attempted to use their name Colgate for food products. Am I the only one that has this strong a reaction? Possibly not because the new food product was unsuccessful.

You can use perceptual mapping not only for single brands against others but also for different iterations (formulas, colors, etc) while doing new product development. Furthermore, you can make the graph three dimensional to include the variable of unassisted brand recall if respondents needed to name the competing brand. The plot for each brand will not be a dot but a circle whose size reflects the number of times it was recalled.

CONTENT RELATED TO BRAND POSITIONING

• Positioning is very important in the 'evaluating alternatives' phase within the customer's buying decision process.
• 'De-commoditizing' aka differentiating your product,
• Unique Value Propositions (UVP)
• Branding 101
• Brand core values
• Brand personality
• Brand mascot
• Brand awareness & brand awareness srategy
• Emotional marketing to emotionally engage your target market.
• Industry analysis
• Ansoff Matrix: Market & Product Development Strategy
• Porter's 5 Forces of Competitive Threats is an ideal accompaniment to a SWOT analysis.
• Packaging design strategy
• LIfestyle branding strategy
• SWOT analyses of key players in different industries.
• When completing your SWOT analysis, pay special attention to the strengths of your competitors, especially the leaders. Those strengths should not be the basis on which you should try to compete with them. You will need to find some alternative.
• Protecting your intellectual property
• Product demand matrix is essentially another type of brand positioning tool. However, its two variables are price and number of customers demanding the product. It therefore plots sales channel locations where your and competing brands may enjoy demand that corresponds with your product offering based on its level of high endedness and price. It is useful for figuring your more direct competitors and provides an opportunity to know which competitors to observe for inspiration for packaging, pricing and so on.
• Perceptual maps. When analyzing your perceptual map, see if the plots exist in all or most quadrants. This is favorable to a straight line. For instance, in simpler plots, price and quality are commonly used as the 2 attributes, However, since these variables are often highly correlated in the minds of the market, the plot essentially measures only 1 (and not 2) variables. In such a case, all of the plots form a clear straight line, often a diagonal one. This type of result is not ideal as it suggests that the research process was not designed to get maximum value from the data. To counteract this issue, it is advisable to use variables that are not as highly correlated. Having said this, note that patterns with wide gaps do not necessarily indicate this issue. In some cases, they suggest a gap that can be exploited or one tjat is undesirable. Examples of undesirable gaps include cases in which manufacturers will not make expensive products to be sold cheaply .... or customers won't buy expensive products that are low quality.
• The other way. Can you plot how you perceive key characteristics of your target market personality type? ... If your target's problems are special or outlying somehow, you might have the opportunity to personalize your messaging even further. For instance, Skinny-fat solution, a muscle building plan might signal to its target by saying, "It's hard enough for regular guys to build muscle. But us; the skinny-fat guys? It's impossible with the typical advice ..." Notice how this brand is making a very clear distinction between the regular segment and its own. It also shows how the competition is failing this niche. "... This is why I don't follow typical advice. Instead, I use my own 3-step system. Want to learn 
• Abovementioned case studies in other content
• Bayer's
• Colgate
• Dial
• McDonalds
• Nike
• Old Spice
• Starbucks
• Internal links: brand position statement;

Lifestyle Branding Strategy

 

Lifestyle branding is a form of brand promotion. Its primary means of resonating with the target audience is to use content that focuses on the audience's perception of a 'perfect' lifestyle. In other words, it is an indirect means of encouraging sales. It can be likened to a slow burn dating approach that promotes building deep emotional connections. So rather than aggressive sales tactics, it uses the desired lifestyle as an emotional trigger to connect deeply with the target audience. The brand seeks to trigger the target's personal lifestyle goals, whatever that looks like, whether literally physical life style or the application of deep shared beliefs. Consequently, the brand (and its products) are only 'embedded' within the broader picture of the lifestyle message. Afterall, when you meet with beloved friends, you chat about things that connect you, not what you want to sell to each other. The ideal is therefore to create a tribal or cultish following of like-minded people. Needless to say, the primary discussion is that emotional hook while sales are a secondary feature of the relationship.

Lifestyle branding is very beneficial for brand awareness (especially as it relates to highlighting brand core values) and loyalty. It may therefore be scheduled more heavily in the social media content management plan when its benefits (like brand awareness or loyalty) are part of current business goals. For other brands, lifestyle branding is always prominent. In other words, the degree of its application can vary on a continuum according to the brand.

At the surface level, 'lifestyle' relates to anything that people like to do with their time, often a specific sport like biking, mountain hiking or yoga or genre like any extreme sport, talking about certain values or even a particular emotion (as with Coco Cola's 'happiness') through time spent with others. This activity is always a passion, almost to the point of addiction. However, consider 'lifestyle' as holistically as possible. This most likely requires customer relationship marketing (CRM). For instance, know if your brand were to be the ideal best friend to its targets and becomes personified, where would it (and the target) go, what do they do there, how they are motivated and so on? Essentially, 'lifestyle' is like the 'culture' of your brand and its community of target customers. Ultimately, your brand should become a clear symbol of the lifestyle.

Uses & Benefits of Lifestyle Branding

Lifestyle branding encourages customers to connect with your brand more emotionally than would have been possible through otherwise only transactional interactions. This is most true when combined with brand storytelling. Brand lifestyles should allow consumers to feel a certain desirable way (quite outside of what product units provide). If the brand can communicate in a way that is and feels very authentic to consumers, the brand are likely to emotionally hook consumers.

Lifestyle branding allows businesses to expand their product mix with an already captive audience. In turn, a more extensive product mix presents more press opportunities (to more demographic groups, content producers, etc) than would have been the case with only a single product. 

Lifestyle branding is an ideal way for a little known or unknown brand to become well known and liked within a limited time.

It even allows brands to appear bigger than they would have appeared otherwise. After all, it gives the brand persona the opportunity to show up at events, be highly visible and connect with more 'friends' than just their often otherwise boring products alone would have allowed. 

Furthermore, the strategy allows brands to differentiate when their products are not very original or special when compaired with direct product type competition. In other words, it is a clever method of brand positioning. The Red Bull case below illustrates this point very well.

Case studies of Lifestyle Branding

Case study: Red Bull. Red Bull offers an energy drink that really is arguably just an overload of sugar and caffeine. Red Bull illustrates how this brand strategy allows a brand whose entire branding pivots around only one product can invent itself into having a larger-than-life brand persona. Red Bull developed its outrageous lifestyle to differentiate itself from any other soda on the market. This was its basis for unique brand positioning whose unique selling / value proposition is as its tagline suggests, a feelgood' emotion of achievement and invincibility. It called itself an energy drink, aligned itself with the word 'extreme' and sought to embody the word in its personality. Consequently, Red Bull became immersed in the lifestyles and culture of extreme sports. As to be expected for such a 'person' with such interests, they consistently appeared at highly niched extreme sports events, often having the logo attached to helmets, rally car hoods and so on. Like a best friend, they support extreme sports athletes in accordance with their tagline that 'Red Bull gives you wings' which essentially means that they support people to push the envelope to do anything. This was genius exploitation of a market gap in that media outlets were not giving extreme sports much attention. In fact, Red Bull even began creating their own events that, in addition to promoting their brand, promoted the sport. Like Coca Cola (another brand whose product's qualities alone are unlikely to win people over) that has the keyword 'happiness' from which it suggests relationships arise, Red Bull's advertising at events promotes the lifestyle of being 'extreme' over the drink's features. Just as a friend with a personality penchant for anything extreme, Red Bull consistently attends and advertises at extreme sports events therewith sealing its brand personality, arguably even moreso than its television advertisements. Like a proud friend, Red Bull gushed the stories of top extreme athletes in a way that truly engaged the audience. Red Bull's events marketing encourages the public to keep talking about the event in a way that the public won't about a mere product. With such a strong brand lifestyle and branding in general, Red Bull has been able to successfully remain a premium priced product which is a far cry from the brew's old life in Thailand gas stations as a working class / low priced alternative to coffee for long distance truck drivers. In other words, lifestyle branding helped to elevate the image of the product to the extent of a premium brand, associated with high end contact points, starting with its first Formula One race driver. Learn more about Red Bull's use of storytelling. (VIDEOS: How Red Bull got wings: A case study for entrepreneurs; Red Bull: The power of an owned media strategy; Building an engaged audience through content. Lessons from Red Bull Media House;). 

 

See Best of Red Bull extreme sports video playlist

Case study: Patagonia. Although Patagonia sells clothing, the brand personality does not simply attempt to sell on its website. Rather, the personality is of someone who loves the great outdoors and has a spiritual connection with nature. All of its processes and operations align with having a neutral impact on the environment and promote the simplistic lifestyle and the enjoyment of nature. When you land on the website's homepage (pictured below in July 2012), the clothing they sell is not center stage. In fact, the 'Read' button that links to an article about the natural phenomenon in which they are currently interested is larger and has more contrast than the links to the clothing. The brand is only secondary to the lifestyle; it is 'embedded' into the portrayal of the lifestyle.

Rather than request email addresses to 'get the next biggest sale discount', the brand speaks like a person, wanting to maintain the discussion of interest.

Case study: LuluLemon. Lululemon sells high quality athleisure (ie athletic clothing that is sufficiently stylish that it can be worn socially as well). LuluLemon is an upscale brand that was able to quickly gain significant popularity in the yoga world among its target market: mostly well-dressed, health conscious people. It is noteworthy because it has stolen market share from the otherwise unbeatable giants like Nike, Adidas and Reebok. The high quality products were therefore sold as a status symbol. In fact, despite its bad press due to faux pas of the founder, the brand continues to remain strong in the minds of consumers who still associate the brand with yoga and wellness. LuluLemon was able to achieve this cult-like following by being consistent and using heavy promotion. Its promotion was done through established industry ambassadors (the present-day equivalents of whom would be social media fitness influencers) like yoga instructors. They collaborated with prominent fitness influencers to promote the idea of being eliked by experts in the field. Their brick and mortar retail outlets also offer free yoga classes and other wellness events for their consumers. Some outlets also feature a cafe that sells only health food. They have a consistent presence on social media, responding to as many customers as possible via social media. They used the storytelling strategy by creating a platform for telling the fascinating personal stories of relatable challenge and triump of sports enthusiasts. Red Bull tells the stories of these athletes performing extreme feats to emotionally resonate with its audience and motivates others to tell their story of doing anything extreme. Their management explained that they wanted to create an environment for their community and to facilitate their goal of pushing more 'health' experience. (Some of the reasons for LuluLemon's success also stem from their taking advantage of emerging trends. The brand aligned with yoga before yoga was commonly practised but beginning to grow in the West.)

 

Methodology: Photography

Vivid pictures that photography offer are among the most effective means of appealing to the target of lifestyle branding, especially since humans can digest and remember imagery much faster than is the case with words. Imagery is therefore useful for enhancing brand awareness.

Tips for lifestyle branding (DOs & DONTs)

• Establish brand attributes. 
• Red Bull attributes include 'revitalize body and mind', 'extreme', 'sports and adventure'.
• Coca Cola attributes include 'happiness'
• Do things outside of the product and core activities that create more humanlike dimensions to the brand. Examples inlclude events, review films the audience loves, etc. Lifestyle brands have some type of viewpoint or sense of activism, purpose, mission.
• Embrace your lifestyle specificity. Truly live your brand persona in your lifestyle without apology. For instance, if your brand resonates with a certain type of music at a certain volume, do not compromise because, like a personality, your brand does not exist to please everyone.
• Communication is extremely important to lifestyle branding. Consequently, get your brand voice right.
• Master the following. 
• the psychographics aspect of your target market profile. Use customer relationship management (CRM)
• lifestyle desires. To streamline this task, consider:
• a keyword like Red Bull's 'extreme', Coco Cola's 'happiness', etc.
• a unique selling proposition (USP) / delivierable like Red Bull's adrenaline rush and sense of achievement.
• how the lifesstyle looks (like a particular type of sport or activity)
• ability to promote the lifestyle
• communication channels like Red Bull's use of the storytelling strategy through high quality content based on stories of extreme sports enthusiasts or like social media of influencers and experts. So the brand is considered loved by the experts). 
• the most suitable psychological associations between the brand and a lifestyle. Your brand should always be a clear symbol of the lifestyle.
• experiences that provide the lifestyle
• means your brand can use to help the target market to experience their desirable lifestyle.
• Create facilitative avenues for interaction among consumers. Encourage consumers to showcase and enjoy the lifestyle. You may also encourage interaction between the target market and the brand. However, it is simply a place for like-minded people to connect as a community. While your brand need not directly interact with consumers, it is necessary for your brand to trigger conversations by providing some type of content. This interaction provides data that can be analyzed qualitatively. 
• LuluLemon encouraged consumers to give design feedback and suggestions. They ensured that consumers participating in such initiatives also felt heard.
• Focus your communication on the lifestyle, rather than your product. However, the product must be able to fit very well within the context of the lifestyle.

CONTENT RELATED TO LIFESTYLE BRANDING

• Tribalism branding is the extreme form of lifestyle branding.
• One key element of success in lifestyle branding is communicating it through brand storytelling.
• Brand awareness
• Lifestyle branding shifts away from transactional to relational interactions with customers. Read more about customer relationship management (CRM).
• Emotional branding (with case studies for happiness, sadness, anger and fear)
• Some other lifestyle brands: 
• Coca Cola
• Frosted Flakes (and their iconic Tony the Tiget), 
• Nike
• How to build a lifestyle brand (Example: singers portraying a lifestyle that matches their music)
• Social media ideal for lifestyle branding
• Instagram (templates included)
• Brand pesonality
• Discussions on lifestyle branding. 'The “Lifestyle Brand” Formula: Authentic Connections and Passion in the Restaurant Industry'
• Abovementioned case studies in other content
• Coca Cola
• Lululemon
• Patagonia
• Red Bull
• Internal links: Red Bull case study;

Brand Awareness & Brand Awareness Strategy 101

What is Brand Awareness?

Brand awareness refers to the (level of) consumer familiarity with a brand, its concept and the value it offers. However, a more comprehensive definition also considers the consumer's level of ability regarding 'the awareness Rs', ie level of brand Recognition and brand Recall. 

Brand recognition helps customers to find your brand while brand recall helps customers to be loyal. Brand awareness is most important in a very competitive aka 'noisy' market.

Degrees of Brand Awareness (Brief Intro, Examples below)

As suggested by the definition, brand awareness can range in strength. As consumers' awareness strengthens, their awareness advances beyond basic knowledge of the brand concept to the following.

• Recognition (among competing brands in a noisy market place based on the brand's distinctive qualities like its name, mascot, logo, color, modus operandi, tagline or other elements of the brand personality). - STRONG   

• Recall. 
• aided with brand-specific visuals or other clues. - VERY STRONG 
• unaided - STRONGEST

More on Brand Recognition

Example: If you forgot your shopping list on which you wrote the brandname of cake mix you want to buy, would you recognize the brand among all the other options, even if you can not remember the name? If you can recognize the brand because of the label's colors, the packaging style, etc, you will have some amount of brand awareness.

Seth Godin once said that a well established brand should remain recognizable to customers, even if you removed the logo and all other signage. Consumers passing such tests despite the lack of the most commonly recognizable brand identifiers have an even higher level of brand awareness. 

If your brand fails this test, it is more of a commodity and less of a brand. (Read about how commodities differ from brands). Brand awareness may result from one or several factors that stick in people's minds like unique packaging, striking advertisements, outstanding quality, great customer service, sustainable practices, pricing or brand positioning.

Example: Would you recognize your favorite hotel brand if you awoke in one of their rooms which had no branded materials? Why? With which brands are you able to do this? Why? 

More on Brand Recall (1 - Aided Recall & 2 - Unaided Recall)

Aided Recall

• Example. If customers recognize the Disney brand when tested with only a clue aka 'trigger' like the Mickey Mouse logo. 

Un-Aided Recall

• Example. If customers say 'Disney' when tested on the Disney brand with a clue aka 'trigger' like the question, 'Where would you go to have lots of family fun?' In other words, customers can remember the brand by name even without recognizable elements of the brand. 

Where do you start brand awareness strategy?

Place your target market at the epicenter of your efforts. You should have already defined your target's profile based on what they value in each part of the marketing mix. (Read about target market avatars and buyer personality types). Integrate brand awareness into each component of the marketing mix. For instance, regarding 'promotions', your design process for packaging and point-of-purchase / POP displays should consistently apply a palette as per the brand style guidelines.

CONTENT RELATED TO BRAND AWARENESS

• Brand awareness measurements
• Arguably, brand awareness goes only so far. Since it does not necessarily engender an emotional relationship, tribal branding is necessary to improve the customer's brand affinity.
• Brand awareness hack: 
• Brand collaboration. See how curated social media content might open up opportunities to strategic brand collaborations.
• Brand Positioning - Strategy:
• Decommoditize to achieve stronger branding
• Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
• Lifestyle branding strategy
• Brand Positioning, Strategy
• Product branding (ie product level branding to allow single products to stand out as stand alone brands)

• Packaging design strategy
• Brand Style Guidelines (Color 101)
• Social media content management