Let’s say you’re inviting people over for dinner, you’re making Chicken Mole.
Your guests are mingling in the kitchen, watching you bring their meal to life from scratch. You’re the type that when you entertain, you pull out all the stops. As you pull out each ingredient, you want the packaging to make your guests feel special, that they can anticipate a great meal because you’ve carefully chosen each component. You want it to say something special about you.
This is a great question to ask yourself if you market a CPG, especially if it doesn’t possess the fame of a Coke or Lay’s. How would you feel pulling your package out of the pantry or a shopping bag? Step one is leaving an impression, most packaging is unremarkable, unimpressionable. It should make people feel indulgent, even if its a value brand, no one has to know. It should make them feel smart, as if they’re onto something others are not. It should exude or reflect who your customers want to be when they use your product – sophisticated, logical, whimsical, daring, bold…
Brands using the same old approach to packaging will struggle to create this connection. Most packaging today is literal and status quo,”another brand of X, only with X% less sodium.” They’ll wind up in a cycle of winning and losing customers shopping for discounts. It’s time to shift thinking away from what the brand thinks a package should look like to what the package can say about the customers who buy it. If you’ve ever bought an Apple product, you’ll know what i’m talking about.