We are lucky to have a staggering number of options when it comes to food. Every year tens of thousands of new food products are brought to market. They join the thousands of products already on the shelves.
And every year, 95 percent of new products fail.
A trip to the store can be an overwhelming experience in packaging overload.
The sight of food may stimulate your appetite, but when it comes to packaged food, poor presentation just won’t cut it.
The packaging that holds the food, the layout and ambiance of the restaurant where you eat, and the marketing and advertising that introduces you to the brand are important.
All of these elements benefit from good design.
Good design increases the value of your brand and makes it easier for you to acquire new customers.
Good design is good business.
In an increasingly challenging market for new products, it’s important to take advantage of any competitive edge you can find.
Getting from the initial product idea to something with an effective package design and brand takes some effort, but it’s an important part of your success.
Let’s take a closer look.
Design Sells
A study by MeadWestvaco, “Packaging Matters,” revealed that packaging drives 36 percent of purchase decisions, “more so than TV ads, online reviews, and recommendations from friends.”
Nutella understood this and used the power of design in a wildly successful 2017 campaign.
Nutella introduced seven million different versions of Nutella’s graphic identity, each sold on a single bottle. The company used an algorithm to randomly generate the designs and stamped each jar with its own unique code so it could be authenticated by collectors.
The campaign ran in Italy and was a huge success, selling out in just one month.
If you’re interested in achieving similar success, you’ll need a professional to help you.
Working with a professional designer will serve your business in a number of ways:
- Designers have the skill to visually communicate your brand to your audience.
- Professional design will ensure that your brand makes a polished impression on your customers.
- Professional designers can create a suite of consistently branded designs for your logo, packaging, website and social media.
If you’re on a budget but want top-of-the-line results, consider crowdsourcing your branding design.
Crowdsourced design allows you to choose from dozens of design options for far less than you would spend at a traditional design studio.
For example, crowdspring helps small business with design and branding every day. With projects for logos, vehicle wraps, websites, social media assets, package graphics, and package design, crowdspring is a one-stop food and beverage design shop.
Whatever path you choose, working with professional designers will ensure a professional result and help guide you to a clearly communicated visual brand.
Strong Design = Trust
When people work with a company, they want to know they’re working with professionals. Investing in professional design shows that your business values professionalism and sends a powerful message to potential clients or customers. You only have one chance to make a first impression, and using a professional designer helps you make it as effective as possible. Investing wisely is key to sustaining and growing your business, and design is no exception.
People view good design as more trustworthy.
Many studies have examined how people trust and are drawn to things that they find attractive, and packaging is no exception.
This is especially true when you consider that healthy, clean eating and consumer awareness of where their food comes from continue to be big trends.
Good design can play a big role in helping you educate people on the merits of your product, and bringing attention to the things they care about most.
One powerful way to incorporate strong design into food packaging is to integrate storytelling. Companies can create compelling narratives that follow the journey of how their product goes from farm to table.
The Kashi Company is well-known for their line of organic breakfast cereals and snacks.
They recently rebranded and redesigned their entire line of products to incorporate storytelling as a primary element. When asked why they took this storytelling approach, here’s what they said:
Kashi wanted to bring people closer to the food they love, so we incorporated these stories featuring employees, farmers, and friends of Kashi who have had a deep impact on the food on all packaging. For example, Kashi Dark Cocoa Karma Shredded Wheat Biscuits features the story of Wyoming-based farmer Newton Russell, who was one of first farmers to pilot the Certified Transitional protocol (an initiative to help farmers transition fields from conventional to organic) and grew the wheat featured in the first batch of this new cereal.
The company turned the stories behind their food into a powerful way of connecting their customers with the process and people that made them.
This helps solidify the organic, wholesome nature of their food and undoubtedly helps to increase consumer trust in their products.
Packaging Design Alters Product Perception
As a product’s first impression, packaging has to fulfill the “three W’s of good packaging design”:
- What is this? – inform the customer about the product.
- What does it do? – provide some instruction or clue as to the product’s functionality.
- What’s the value? – why should anyone buy it?
Author Malcolm Gladwell examined the power of packaging design in his book Blink.
He profiled famed marketer Louis Cheskin and his observation that people often transferred their impression of a product’s packaging to the product itself. He called this “sensation transference.”
Cheskin used this concept successfully when he was trying to market margarine in the 1940s.
In the 1940’s margarine was still a fairly new product and very unpopular with consumers, as it was viewed as a cheap imitation of butter.
Cheskin’s solution was to wrap blocks of margarine in gold foil, thus making it look more like butter.
His solution was successful because it changed how margarine was perceived by customers. The massive boost in sales that resulted from this change proved that the gold foil made margarine feel more fancy and high-quality, overcoming its cheap reputation.
In an unrelated campaign, Cheskin found that by adding a certain percentage of yellow to the green in 7-Up’s packaging, people reported that the drink had more lemon flavor, even though the drink formula was unchanged.
Similarly, Cheskin discovered that by adding the image of a sprig of parsley into the logo of food company Hormel, people perceived Hormel products as being fresher.
The reality that seemingly small changes like this can have a huge effect on the perception of a product is a key reason why investing in good packaging is so important.
Designing packaging that makes an impact
So you’re convinced that you need to invest in designing amazing packaging for your product. But how do you create something that stands out? And where do you start?
Companies like Apple have elevated packaging into an art form that has also created its own cottage industry of unboxers – people who unbox packages for a living.
Personalized box image courtesy of Mediaclip
As we mentioned when we looked at 7 important packaging design trends:
Smart companies have found that exceptional packaging can create brand value and a phenomenal customer experience. You don’t have to look further than the unbelievable number of YouTube channels dedicated to the unboxing of products to see how far packaging has come. You can now spend hours watching someone free a bevy of toys, electronics, or even food and makeup from the bonds of artistic prison.
Very few companies have the focus and the dedication that Apple does to create packaging as artful as Apple, but you can still design something impactful if you follow some best practices.
Do your research. Before you start, spend time really getting to know your demographic and your target audience. Find out what values and ideas are important to them, and investigate ways of reflecting those in your design.
Your packaging design (the physical design of the packaging) and package graphics (the graphics design on the packaging) should also be tightly bound to your brand, so market research and other brand investigations will be just as valuable here as they were when you created your logo.
Make it an experience. One of the main reasons unboxing Apple products are so fun is because of the care and attention they put into every element of their packages.
This focus on creating a good experience also echoes Apple’s brand, which is all about creating user-friendly products that put the customer’s needs first.
Make it personalized. Packaging that somehow reflects the person opening it is becoming more and more prevalent, and for good reason: personalized experiences are memorable experiences.
We already looked at how Coke turned people’s names into a huge branding success, and companies like Care/Of (with their personalized vitamin packaging) are taking this idea and running with it.
“Our product is personalized for each user, and that’s possible because we are digitally based,” Care/Of CEO Craig Elbert told TechCrunch.
Consumers share some information with us through a quiz that takes a few minutes, and we recommend a set of supplements for them using an algorithm that takes into account clinical research.
The vitamins are sent out in elegantly designed packages with the customer’s name printed right on them, which helps drive home the idea that their product was customized just for you.
Consider going eco-friendly with your design. Customers are more informed than ever about the challenges of creating too much waste, and companies are taking note. The European Organization for Packaging and the Environment said that companies helped reduce the amount of waste going to landfills by 50 percent, and this number is increasing every year.
Use packaging to educate
More than ever, consumers are reading the labels on the products they buy, especially food products. They want to know what’s in the products they eat, where it came from, and what nutritional value it has.
Infographic courtesy of The Hartman-Group
Among consumers who say they are watching their weight, 81 percent read the nutritional panel on product labels and of these, 59 percent say they frequently or almost always read nutrition labels. Even consumers who aren’t necessarily diet-minded read the Nutrition Facts panel: 72 percent say they read it and among these consumers who are not watching their weight, 42 percent read it frequently or almost always.
The way you design your food’s packaging helps inform customers eager to make healthy choices:
- Is your product organic?
- Is there something noteworthy about the nutritional makeup of your product?
- Is it high in a certain vitamin?
- Is it great for people searching for gluten-free alternatives?
Call out key benefits right on the front of the package, so customers don’t need to dig for the information on the back panel.
Not only does this create transparency and increase trust for your product, it can be a great way to differentiate your product on the shelves.
A study showed that “Front Of Package” (FOP) labeling were more effective in calling attention to the health benefits of a particular product than information on the back of the package.
Employing strategies like nutritional information on the front of your product’s package is an effective way to cut through the visual noise of crowded store shelves.
Wrapping up
In his book The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier said that “a retail package is the last and best chance to make a sale.”
It’s an astute observation: after the marketing, advertising, and other customer awareness work is done, what the customer sees on the store shelves really is the last exposure they have to your product.
Creating a packaging design that is informative, eye-catching, and memorable is a critical part of any product’s success. You can help ensure that your product gets the best last chance it can get through careful market and demographic research, ensuring tight brand alignment, and carefully designed packaging.
Are you ready to take your food or beverage product’s packaging to the next level? Let crowdspring’s 210,000 designers help you get mouthwatering designs you’ll love. Get started now and request a free, no obligation design consultation for a new custom logo, web design, product design, packaging design, package graphics, or any other type of design, with one of our design experts today.
The post Why Mouthwatering Design Matters for Your Food and Beverage Business appeared first on crowdspring Blog.
