Demand for luxury products continues but, writes Simon Creasey, the sector’s design outlook is filtering into
Recession – what recession? Recent sales figures from luxury retailers belie fears of a double dip economic downturn. Operators like Selfridges and Fortnum & Mason are seeing profits soar, while sales of luxury chocolates, beauty and skincare products and spirits and wines all on the increase.
The sales upturn being enjoyed by these items despite the ongoing economic gloom is no coincidence, according to Michael Skipper, senior account manager at design agency Honey. “In hard times people seek compensatory gifts or self-gift to make up for other more expensive treats being unattainable,” he explains.
But what place does luxury have in the nation’s new age of austerity and what sort of factors do brands need to consider to make the packaging of these luxury items work in the future? The sales figures may sound impressive but there’s no masking the truth – manufacturers of luxury items have never had it so tough.
That’s largely because the definition of luxury has been redrawn to reflect a change in shopper behaviour. Whereas pre-recession typical spend on a luxury item might have been around the £50-£100 mark, for the vast majority of consumers that price point has lowered significantly to around £20-£50.
This shift in consumer behaviour and aspirations means that the traditional conventions surrounding the creation of luxury packaging have also had to change with clients demanding packs that work harder than ever to enhance a customer’s relationship with a brand.
“Packaging design is an intrinsic part of the luxury brand consumer experience and is one of the few touch points beyond the sales environment that upscale brands can directly control,” says Andy Paul, deputy managing director at agency Elmwood. “They can’t afford to skimp on extending the luxury experience beyond the transaction and as packaging makes its way out of the sales environment into the streets and consumers’ homes, luxury brands need to ensure that it embodies the brand’s style, quality and values.” While the pressure to reflect these societal changes has grown over the last few years there’s also growing client and consumer pressure to ensure that brands are not being overly wasteful with their luxury offering, says agency We Are Pure owner David Rogers.
Clever tricks
“The public are savvy to the fact that they want the contents not the packaging and will expect the pack to be special but not too extravagant,” he says. “This can be achieved through clever tricks like the up and coming digital label process where small volume runs can have effects like foil, textures, scratch and sniff and innovative sealants at a fraction of the cost [of litho]. This must be fantastic for the luxury brand owners who are conscious that cost is key within retailer range reviews.” Rogers says that he has personally worked on 15 projects in the last 12 months that involve digital labels offering clients “great effects at a fraction of the cost of conventional printing and with the reassurance that they can produce short runs”.
The flip side of all this is that, just as mainstream fashion brands take inspiration from couture fashion ranges to manufacture and distribute a lower spec offer to the mass public, luxury packaging can be the inspiration for lesser value products churned out by an FMCG company looking to give its products a more premium feel. But this will only work if it’s done in the correct manner, cautions Honey’s Skipper.
“The approach to taking elements from luxury into FMCG and the key to success in either the premium or FMCG market is to remember that it’s the personal bond packaging can create between you and the customer, between the customer and the recipient,” he says. “There’s the quality of service, the sense that a product comes from a person, not a factory, product delivery that lives up to its promise, a sense of mystery and revelation about the packaging. All of this, of course, needs to be founded in the basics of good and thorough marketing.” Rogers concurs: “Luxury design in FMCG is about connection with the customer’s emotions. They buy with their hearts in today’s markets and this is pure luxury.”
And the key to winning consumer’s hearts – and wallets – is to hook them into the product by selling them a story about the brand and this is where packaging has a crucial role to play. Regardless of whether it’s a bottle of spirits or a bottle of perfume you’re trying to shift, the principles remain the same, argues Steve McAdam vice president of creative services at Leo Paper.
“With spirits it’s about capturing the essence of what’s in the bottle.
How do you say that in a package that is compelling? In cosmetics it’s the same thing. It’s all about storytelling. When the consumer touches the pack it needs to appeal to their sensibilities.”
FMCG meets luxury
This idea of telling a story through a product’s packaging is a skill that the FMCG groups are particularly adept at and there are other attributes that luxury goods manufacturers could pick up on from observing how these businesses operate, according to Ben Branson, a senior planner at Holmes & Marchant.
“While there is a lot FMCG can learn from luxury I think it is interesting to spin this on the head and look at how luxury can learn from FMCG – do more with less,” he explains. “FMCG is at ground level. It has to work much harder than luxury because most of FMCG is about fulfilling needs not wants. It doesn’t have all the status, kudos, showy side of luxury whether it’s obvious or not.
Luxury has a different personality and purpose – it has more of a ‘because I think I need’ mentality. FMCG is in the business of trying to be an important sustainable part of people’s lives.” In the future it’s increasingly likely that luxury brands will play more in the space traditionally occupied by FMCGs as luxury brand owners come to terms with the new challenges that the category faces. That’s not to say that the future is bleak for luxury products – far from it, says Elmwood’s Paul.
“While today is a far cry from the frenzied luxury consumption levels of four to five years ago, and the ‘it’ bag has definitely had its day, luxury brands are far from struggling,” he explains. “Many of them have artfully seen what luxury consumers want in these difficult times and have sought to deliver experiences beyond the expected, pushing the boundaries of surprise and delight. As ever they will need to maintain their high standards of quality, craftsmanship, design and service.” We Are Pure’s Rogers believes in the future there will be a greater emphasis on luxury creative rather than luxury physical packaging.
“The times have changed since gold foil was the ultimate in luxury.
The way brands present themselves now, with the emergence of organic, means that the direction of customer perception is that if the graphics are quirky, the name’s humorous, the finish on the card is muted and textured. This is the new luxury.” It’s also the new norm so the sooner brands accept it and embrace it, the better.
Five of the best
Vallure Vodka
With the price of gold enjoying record highs it doesn’t seem like the best time to choose the material for your packaging. However, that’s exactly what luxury vodka brand Vallure has done. The vodka, which is produced at a 100-year-old distillery from a secret recipe, is encased in a 24 karat gold bottle that, according to the producer, is crafted with the same skill and integrity of high-end jewellery.
Russian Standard
There’s bling and then there’s Russian Standard’s Swarovski Crystal Crown Edition, which would look more at home in the hands of a hip hop star in a Las Vegas nightclub than on a retailer’s shelf. Limited to just 20,000 bottles and bejewelled with 24 Swarovski crystal beads, the vodka is only available in selected duty free outlets at airports, hotels and selected restaurants and clubs.
Ramlosa Water
Like many other water brands it dawned on Swedish company Ramlosa that using glass bottles for its classy H2O was no longer a sustainable option so in 2010 it decided to make the switch to PET. It was a bold move for such a highend product, but the Swedish design agency NINE created a bottle that referenced “the sharp and graceful cuts on crystal vases”, lifting it from the status of disposable plastic bottle to true work of art.
Lov
Organic Teas Many years ago tea was sold loose in tins but the tradition has faded over time with cartons proving a cheap and able replacement. But when you’ve got a premium product to sell, sometimes card just doesn’t pass muster. This was the thinking, at least, at organic tea company Lov, which decided to pack its brew in simple but elegant canisters whose distinctive colours immediately catch the eye.
Freixenet
Elyssia When Freixenet launched a new premium cava called Elyssia – taken from the Latin Elysium, meaning heavenly or a state of perfect bliss – the company wanted to produce packaging that reflected the symmetry of the old and the new. The result, designed by Holmes & Marchant, is a sensual, modern bottle and label that give the product a distinctive, elegant look.
