Good Packaging Design Integral to Success of Consumer Products

Every year hundreds of great new consumer products hit the shelves around New Zealand, most of which fail to hit their mark with their target audience.

So why is this? More often than not, it’s ineffective packaging design that is the culprit.

Whether it’s a packet of corn chips, merino tee shirt or bottle of red wine, every consumer product must grab the attention and convince them that that particular product is better than their shelf rivals.

Packaging design has become massively important over the past few years as businesses realise that good packaging and of course the right price point will often lead to excellent sales. In fact, having good packaging can result in more sales than the better product with worse packaging.

How Packaging Should Represent Your Brand

Every brand of consumer product has a personality. This can be conveyed to consumers through colour, fonts and texture. Effective packaging design uses these elements to tell a brand’s story.

Finding the Right Price Point

As consumers, we often assume a product’s price based on its packaging, even before we see a price tag. If your packaging suggests a quality, value-for-money product, then that automatically opens the door for a price point higher than some of your competitor’s products.

Choosing the Right Packaging Materials

Before deciding on your packaging you’ll need to consider things like durability (i.e. how long will the packaging need to stay intact before consumer use?). Are your consumers likely to be environmentally conscious? These are just two factors you’ll need to consider.

Shelf Appeal

Consumers judge a product by its packaging before buying, which makes it essential for attracting new customers. Packaging design appeal may in fact persuade consumers to switch brands. To help ensure retention of customers and entice new ones, your packaging needs to positively distinguish your product from both direct and in-direct competition.

When a consumer looks at muesli bars on the shelf they’ll normally be drawn to ones with appealing packaging or a brand they’re familiar with. If they’re new to muesli bars, then the product with the best packaging is likely to be picked up first. That’s half of the sale complete. Now it’s just a matter of convincing them of taste, value and health benefits.

Keeping Things Fresh

In order to remain fashionable and avoid going stale, you may need to re-address your current packaging design. Beer companies in particular are often modifying or improving their packaging to ensure they hold onto regular customers and potential customers who are regularly tempted by other marketing-driven beer companies.

Onfire Design provide packaging design Auckland-wide. If you have an existing brand or are looking to create a new brand from scratch please contact Sam Allan 09 480 2036.