I love letting the shopper in me loose because that little retail bug acts as a ‘observational intelligence’ for the creative, brand-strategy thinker in me. This bug’s favorite place of hang-out? Modern retail avenues on weekends that become the trigger to random e-commerce excursions over the weekdays as fragmented sessions. Each time my ‘shopper alter-ego’ discovers a new perspective that dawns as realizations.
Let me share one of its musings – ‘Not just a pack!’
A musing that made us at BigBrandTheory investigate and write about – packaging and the role it plays in the minds and lives of consumers. A two part blog series where the first part explores what a Pack/packaging standing tall on the shelves is for the Consumer and part two explores the expectations that consumers have from brands and their packaging
Part #1 – What is your packaging for your consumer?
If you are a brand-custodian of any kind and reading this please note that this question has been answered from a specific context being – consumers enter the shopping realm to buy a solution for themselves, so as a brand don’t take yourself too seriously and yet be sincere. And packaging isn’t just design aesthetics, it’s a design function.
It’s a visual story:
A visual story is also known as a micro-interaction. This interaction can be a single word or visual or it can be a coming together of illustrations, images, words. The first role of a visual story from a packaging point of view is to stand-out on that multiverse of products living on shelves. This story’s protagonist is the consumer thus visuals, illustrations and ideas that appeal and answer to the consumer are key characters of this story, rest everything is a subplot, so much so that please know visually your brand is also a sidekick.
The canvas could be a label, a box, a container, a pouch – the key is to tell the visual story in a simple, non-confusion way. Anything that needs subtitles on shelves translates into opportunity lost.
It’s a Conversation:
The visual story draws the consumer closer and the nudge it provides is ‘pick-me-up’. Once you are picked up, think of it as a first date, it’s time to start an interesting conversation. Be funny, be creative, be meaningful, be sincere, be genuine. Keep the consumer’s interest in mind and talk about what they want to hear. The conversation has to be piquant. But never forget the basics of a good conversation
- Be polite & friendly – read approachable.
- Create an emotional connection.
- Make it a two-way street.
- Be authentic.
Weave in the boons of technology to ensure you get that second interaction, use QR codes, augmented reality.
It’s a Promise:
So far whatever you have done to woo your target audience with an aim to convert them into consumers is to drive them at this point. When they pick you up as a pack – they are for the first time tangibly feeling all that you have been saying. So this pack is a promise. Make it about quality, about authenticity, about truth. Be yourself as a brand. Live your persona through the pack’s material, design, words.
Say what you have to offer in simple but promising ways. Because when they pick you up and converse with you they are looking for establishing trust.
It’s Information:
They say people buy out of emotion and then justify the buy through reason. Thus your packaging needs to weave-in those crucial pieces of information that educate, enlighten and inform the logical side of your consumer and increase their emotional confidence in your brand.
It’s a keepsake:
The aesthetic meets utility combination is a sure way to become a part of the consumer’s home and life. Put on your innovation cap and find simple but surprising ways to make your packaging a utility, a life-function. Consumer’s love packaging that extend themselves as keepsakes and are reusable.
That 5 minute moment of truth in the retail arena is an intense journey from attraction, to conversation, emotion, and logic. It’s from abstract to definition. Your packaging is a decision. Enable your consumer to make confident one!