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.

Grunt Test

After recognizing that competing insurance websites usually made the signup process difficult, Geico, an insurance company, offered a signup website that was so easy that, according to their unique selling proposition, even a caveman could use it. Their claim was that their website passed the 'grunt test'.

Performing the grunt test involves determining whether your target market can affirmatively answer 3 questions within seconds.

1. What do you offer?
2. How will your offering improve their life?
3. What must they do to buy it?

From the perspective of customer communication, whether through website design, campaigns, research & development surveys, product launchs, product labels or otherwise, passing the grunt test is critical for lead generation and conversion. After all, analytics show that if your communication does not pass this test within a few seconds, potential customers will lose interest.

Landing pages, product pages, campaign pages, any type of advertising should pass the grunt test to convince leads to follow the call to action.

To clarify, the test involves the following elements. # 1 involves clear and simple product identification, #2 involves unique value proposition and responding to customer problems (like pain points, desires or other key motivation factors). #3 involves the call to actions.

CONTENT RELATED TO THE GRUNT TEST

• Unique value proposition
• Branding 101
• All things 'Branding'
• Landing pages 101

CPG Product Multilingual Labeling

Should you use multilingual packaging for CPG products?

This post will discuss when multilingual labeling for consumer packaged goods (CPGs) is absolutely necessary and when, although not necessary, could be a great strategic marketing choice.

Legislation - the case for multilingual labeling when it is necessary.

When deciding on your CPG labeling, consult with the requisite standards bureau for rules that may apply for each of the markets to which you will distribute your products.

For instance, Canadian labeling laws for CPGs sold in Quebec require that the French language copy be given equal prominence as English. Conversely, although the U.S., has specific category and product requirements, mandatory bodies do not require equal prominence. The matter of multilingual labelling therefore becomes more a matter of marketing strategy in some cases. 

See the case of Capn Crunch below. That brand complies so strictly with the Canadian requirements. It even does so with font size, color and letter format (whether upper or lower case). Notice how, in the case of Capn Crunch, each language is represented in a separate way that is consistent in different parts of the packaging to help consumers to easily find their language.  

 

The case of Nature Valley below takes a slightly different approach. Each side of the box has a different language on otherwise identical labeling. However, the side panels (not shown here) have all the other details.

Below is an example of how more technical details are represented with equal prominence between or among languages. 

The Canada cases show the highest level of compliance with multilingual labeling that you can consider, even if your jurisdiction does not have requirements. When you are left with the choice, consider the following strategic reasons that you might consider multilingual labeling anyway.

Strategic Marketing Objectives - The case for multilingual labeling for CPGs when it is a choice

There are different reasons for wanting to use multilingual labeling that include the following. 

• To enter or penetrate a market segment with specific demographics. Who comes into contact with your product? Can you convert more of these leads if you could communicate with them through labeling? A good case study is the US in which the Hispanic population grew to 38.8 million, a 10% increase since 2000. For nearly 50% of persons within that segment, Spanish was their primary or only language. This case shows the need to study the demographics of the market in contact with your distribution channels. Specifically, if the foreign language segment matches your product, multilingual labeling might improve your ability to attract it into your sales funnel and convert more leads. Your instore / Point of Purchase (POP) advertising ought to be multilingual, at the very least. 

• To ensure consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty. If the proper method of using your product or some other technical is new to the foreign language segment, using their language is a must for ensuring consumers have a satisfactory experience and remain loyal. This is why cosmetic and health care packaging commonly offer instructions in as many as 4 languages in regions like Europe. The last thing you need is for consumers to misuse or otherwise misunderstand your product and develop a negative impression of your brand. 

DO's

• Consult your legal team regarding the requirements for each region of distribution. What details must be included in labels and where? What font size requirements exist? (After all, some languages, like Spanish, typically require more label real estate than English). What level of prominence is required if multilingual packaging is normal?  
• Glocalize labels. Convey the message across languages (ie rather than providing literal translations). Since literal translations often vary in meaning across cultures, be clear on the culture-specific message you want to convey and use the appropriate wording. Remember; function before form! Do not stress if the new language lacks some of the flare or a joke. To glocalize more effectively, you might even prefer to transliterate your brand when the other language does not use letters. For instance, before the Beijing Olympics, Coca Cola transliterated its branding into Mandarin, Ethiopian, Thai and Russian languages. 

• When faced with the challenge of managing space on the label, legibility of extra words and the label's overall attractiveness, start your selection regarding what must appear on the label with the most powerful purchase motivation factors that must be most readily communicated. Depending on the product, they are usually solutions to your target market's painpoints or a means of catering to desires. Those should be most readily communicated through each language. Other details may appear on secondary panels.
• When it is not possible to include all of the details onto the label's surface, use extended content labels. This label can be unpeeled, stuck on, or scanned via QR codes to reveal the other languages. Product tags may also be used. 

• Use universally understood symbols to minimize your word count.

CONTENT RELATED TO CPG PRODUCT MULTILINGUAL LABELING

• Instore / Point of Purchase (POP) advertising 
• Ensure that your product labels avoid 'warning defects' - one of the risks against which product liability insurance can protect your business.