Packaging used to just be about the three P's: protection, preservation and presentation. But nowadays it's about so much more than that. In addition to delivering the above listed qualities packaging has to tell a story about the brand. In essence, brand owners and pack designers have to act like curators. They have to pull together lots of different elements - sight, sound, feel and sometimes even smell -to ensure that the brands' personality is reflected in a multi-sensory packaging design.
In addition to delivering on all of these requirements, the pack also needs to have shelf stand out. This attribute is vital because when consumers shop in a UK supermarket they're assessing 900 items per minute, according to 'Unwrapped: the hidden power of packaging', a report commissioned by the British Brands Group. As a result they are literally making purchasing decisions in the blink of an eye.
So what sort of tricks can brand owners and packaging designers use to ensure their products stand out from the crowd and catch the eye of consumers?
Colourful vs simplistic
When you take a closer look at the FMCG marketplace at the moment there are two diverging trends occurring in terms of the approach to colour.
"Some companies are breaking the mould and going with bright colours that you wouldn't normally see in a category," says Brigitte Armstrong, product manager Inform at Payne. "And then you have the other trend toward more eco friendly packaging; it's? natural, kind and? caring."
Brands that opt for the latter approach need to tread very carefully, cautions Chris Peach, research director at Marketing Sciences.
"Too little activity on pack and you risk consumers thinking that you lack substance or have anything to say," explains Peach. "Dialling down the colours can make consumers think the product is more natural, but it may also suggest that it will be bland tasting. Getting this balance right has been a challenge for a number of brands of late."
On the flipside, if you ramp up the use of colour to cause disruption in a fixture, there's a danger your brand may go unnoticed, according to Ads Ellis, creative director at brand consultancy The Cabinet.
"Colour can become invisible," says Ellis. "If you're in the cornflake aisle you can't see the wood from the trees because everyone is shouting so loudly."
It's a difficult balancing act, but you can get it right if you heed what occurs in nature, says Barry Pamplin, technical director at The PackHub.
"When in nature you want to stand out to attract a mate you use strong contrasting colours," says Pamplin. "These colours have evolved to stand out in the context of the natural surroundings. If all around you is green you need strong vibrant colours to contrast the background. The same can be applied to the packaging. If you want to stand out, look at your competitors. It is the colours they have chosen that you need to stand out from. If they have gone green , go bold. A good example is Ella's Kitchen in the baby food section."
When it launched, Ella's managed to successfully disrupt the baby food category through its innovative use of pouch packs and a vibrant colour palette. Packaging has played a crucial role in the brand's success ever since, according to Ella's Kitchen's head of operations Olivia Adamson.
"Ella's Kitchen's aim is to make food healthy, handy and fun for kids," says Adamson. "The convenience of the pouch combined with fun bright colours and innovative recipe combinations, such as sweet potato, pumpkin, apple and blueberry, ticks all those boxes, underpinned by a very personal brand that people really connect with."
This use of vibrant colours was an approach also favoured by Jonty White, formerly a director at Burts Chips, who branched out to set up his own popcorn company Portlebay Popcorn. White says the pack design process took six months, but he wasn't prepared to cut corners as he knows how little time brands have to get their message across to shoppers.
"I strongly believe colour has to be an intrinsic part of packaging and the brand as a whole," says White. "So far we have had an amazing response to our packaging and the product inside, both from buyers and more importantly consumers."
Having already successfully used colour to launch a disruptive product into the sausage category with the striking pack design for Debbie & Andrews sausages, when husband and wife team Debbie and Andrew Keeble sold the company to start a new venture called Heck, they wanted to come up with a new pack that could "cut through the own-brand domination of the category" and appeal to a younger demographic.
The upshot was a simple yet bold pack design that reflects the "honesty and integrity" of the product within, says Debbie Keeble.
"The striking colours used for each of the eight variant packs were designed to stand out at fixture and provide a stark contrast to the black packs and photography favoured by the competition," she explains. "The Farrow and Ball-esque colour palette takes a certain amount of influence from current trends towards minimalism and revivalism in premium design -such as going back to more authentic design to reflect meaningful experiences that discerning consumers in the know can appreciate."
Special print effects
At a time when you would imagine that brands would be weighing up investing in the look and feel of their packaging and employing all manner of different finishing embellishments to stave off the growing threat of copycat own label products, the reverse seems to be occurring, according to Elliot Wilson, strategy director at The Cabinet.
"So many FMCG brands are dialling down the quality of their packaging because they're cost cutting," says Wilson. "Labels are badly applied, they're thin and there's no consideration to finish. It's all to the detriment of the brand."
However, not everyone is scaling back on the look and feel of their packs. Some are investing in special finishing embellishments ranging from scratch and sniff and holograms, through to sound, to give consumers a heightened brand experience. According to Payne's Brigitte Armstrong, one category that's particularly active in this field at the moment is health and beauty.
"Go and look at the toothpaste aisle and you'll be surprised at how many packs have got holograms on them," says Armstrong. "There's also a toothpaste pack from Crest where they put scratch and sniff on the pack to give you the smell of mint."
She highlights the further use of scratch and sniff on a pack of Venus razors and believes that "smell is something that could come in again as brand owners look for greater engagement with the pack".
Another area some brands are keen to explore at the moment is tactile packs. "We've had a lot of interest [from clients] in tactile," confirms Simon Wildash, head of marketing at Payne. "Whether it's building in raised areas or embossing, or the feel of the substrate itself."
Although it may be growing in popularity, the key challenge surrounding tactile packs is whether or not the financial outlay is worthwhile, says Cathy Barnes, professor of retail innovation at Leeds Metropolitan University and director of the Faraday Centre for Retail Excellence
"I would argue from the studies I've done that they are absolutely worth it," says Barnes. "One of the main reasons the iPhone has been so successful is to do with the fact that it's a beautiful tactile experience. With the packaging that we interact with more frequently – so products that come in and out of the cupboard a lot like ketchup – a tactile experience would be a huge benefit, but I don't think the cost benefit analysis has been done yet."
One area where the numbers have been done and appear to stack up is the use of sound in packaging. David Hyams, director at sound specialists Talking Print, has noticed a significant increase in the number of enquiries from brands looking to use sound over the last 12 months or so.
Hyams recently completed a promotion for Dairylea that saw his company add the sound of a cow mooing to the company's packs of cheese, which was activated when the lid was lifted. "Word on the street was that the campaign was very successful," says Hyams. "The fact people are still talking about it backs this up."
Of course, a lot of high-end print finishes, which carry a high-end cost, are beyond the financial clout of a lot of FMCG players. And even if this situation changed in the future and they could afford to use them, it probably wouldn't make any sense anyhow, argues Joe Schurtz, executive vice president at PRS Research.
"Reflective inks, holograms and embossing are distinctive tools, but they're used on a more selective basis, which allows them to remain in the domain of a more premium message that goes with it," says Schurtz. "The more it becomes mainstream and is used by more brands in a category the more diluted it becomes as a powerful tool to raise credentials or create differentiation."
Creating that all important point of difference by adding eye-catching embellishments to a pack clearly has its attractions, but any brands considering going down this route need to make sure that they don't go overboard, advises The Cabinet's Ellis.
"The general rule of thumb is if it's going to be hanging around for a couple of months - so if it's a cosmetics or alcohol pack - then it feels relevant to do it because it's eye candy, but if you buy a packet of crisps with gold leaf on it, it would feel over indulgent and inappropriate for an FMCG product."
Personalisation
Heinz, HP, Stella - the list of big brands that have used personalisation to reach out to consumers continues to expand, but is it really worth the extra cost and effort?
The most recent high-profile example of personalisation (or, at least, short-run versioning) from Coca-Cola certainly received a mixed reception from packaging pundits.
Earlier this year the soft drinks giant unveiled its 'Share a Coke' campaign, which has seen it print the 250 most popular names in the UK onto millions of Coke bottles, replacing the iconic Coca-Cola logo with the likes of 'Amber' and 'Zoe'. According to a spokesperson for Coca-Cola, when the company ran a similar campaign in Australia it delivered a 4% uplift in sales, and Coke is similarly bullish about the prospects of the UK campaign.
"Since we launched Share a Coke it's been great to see how positively people have responded," says the spokesperson. "Many people across the country have been sharing the general excitement by posting their own great pics and buzz online. That's what this campaign is all about."
Stergios Bititsios, associate director packaging and design at MMR Research Worldwide, is one of many packaging pundits who thinks the drink's brands use of mass personalisation was an "ingenious" idea.
"I don't normally buy Coke but this new label made me stop and explore the shelf because I found it fascinating," says Bititsios. "This new label managed to make a lapsed user or non-user actually stop and explore the fixture and the chances are that if a pack manages to stop shoppers they will end up buying the product."
Although Bititsios was wooed by the campaign, Barbra Wright, director of consumer brand identity and packaging at Dragon Rouge, was less then convinced, arguing that the packaging isn't personal at all.
"I think it's a big brands' attempt to make some kind of connection with you as a person, but it's not actually about you, it's about them, so it's just very clever and tactical," says Wright. "The really incredible counter campaign to this is the Fentimans campaign that said: 'Buy a weedy cola with your friend's name on it or buy a proper cola with our name on it'."
Regardless of where you stand on Coke's use of mass individualised labels, for many brands this kind of activity is well beyond their budgetary means. However, companies can still take advantage of print personalisation technology if they approach it more tactically.
For instance, Absolut Vodka ran a campaign last year that saw it spray-paint four million bottles, each one featuring a unique pattern, and Heinz allowed shoppers to purchase personalised 'Get well soon' cans of its soup via a dedicated Facebook page, charging people £1.99 for the service.
"We've also seen examples from brands like Wrigley's that allowed consumers to personalise chewing gum packs with pictures and messages," says Payne's Wildash.
Wrigley's charged consumers just shy of $5 for the privilege of sticking their own images and messages on packs and in the US Heinz has gone as far as creating a website called myHeinz that allows users to design their own personalised packs of ketchup and mustard. This raises the question of whether or not brand owners should look at personalisation not just as a clever gimmick to drive sales, but as a potential source of new revenue.
Role of QR codes
When Toni & Guy decided to re-launch its haircare and styling collection a couple of years ago it wanted to do something slightly different with the packaging. One of the common complaints haircare brands receive is that consumers can't match their look with the one the pack claims it delivers.
It would be impossible to include complex step-by-step tutorials on the packaging and costly to insert a colour leaflet talking users through the correct processes, so design agency JDO hit upon the idea of putting a QR code on the product which directed consumers to a website and a series of 'how to' videos to help them achieve their intended look.
In the two or so years since the pack - which was a big hit with consumers - launched, the use of QR codes by brands has exploded. Despite still being in its infancy, on average across the US, UK, France and Germany, 15% of people have used a QR code, with QR usage in the UK (15%) only trailing behind the US (19%), according to a 2012 report compiled by Pitney Bowes.
In the UK 18% of consumers between the ages of 18-24 have used QR codes on packaging (17% of consumers aged between 25-34 have used the codes on packs), with these figures expected to continue to grow over the coming years as the use and awareness of QR codes increases.
Although the vast majority of the world's biggest FMCG groups have already used the codes on packaging or campaign marketing material, PRS' Schurtz thinks it has considerable long-term potential.
"I don't think it's found its niche yet and there's still a lot of experimentation going on," says Schurtz. "However, what I do know is the use of smartphones keeps skyrocketing.
This device that people have with them 24 hours a day is a tool that's going to create more clutter and messaging for brand owners, so the challenge will be how do I use this as a marketer as a messaging tool and start to create more clarity of my message in a medium that's getting more cluttered by the day."
The opportunities are potentially even more attractive around the use of augmented reality (AR), but it is even further back down the evolutionary scale than QR codes, says Dragon Rouge's Barbra Wright.
"I think the way that brands can use it is really interesting because I think it's more impactful than QR codes," says Wright. "It's fun, interesting and quite magical and because it is magical it draws you in, makes that brand feel like it has some kind of superiority over other brands and it creates that illusion or truth of superiority more than a QR code does."
Another space in which QR codes and AR will play an increasingly important role in the future is online shopping, believes MMR's Bititsios.
"Physical packaging won't be able to communicate the right qualities because you're looking at it on a screen, so technology like QR codes and AR will help consumers make better informed decisions when they shop online."
The power of design -Martin Dallas
Powerful packaging design gives you a cost effective means to control the conversation and communicate your messages, to inform, win and keep customers.
The introduction of unique number codes for promotions, or QR codes driving customers to online information, enables a dialogue to be built up and can help create a community based around the brand. And simple innovations -such as changing a printed promotional tape, not the complete pack for maximum impact & cost effectiveness, or increasing the available space for promotional messages using multi-page labels -can be carried out without compromising on pack design.
We are seeing growth in brand owners and manufacturers recognising the value of wider sensory communication. Elements such as textured or embossed labels, or 'soft touch' materials, are gaining interest and are a valuable addition to the strong visual impact of strong design. All of these can be built into packaging solutions to add an extra edge, whether providing on-shelf impact, or communicating brand values and promotions. Pack design at all levels has an important part to play in customer and brand communication.
Martin Dallas is managing director of packaging specialist Payne, which is sponsoring PN's Consumer IQ series
