When it comes to your product’s packaging, level of protection, cost and labour productivity usually become the major factor for decision making. Surely that these are important considerations but think deeper. Your choice of packaging can cause huge impact on consumer’s perception towards your product and company as well as their buying decision. Here’s how:
Look at the shelves. There are hundreds and thousands of products stacked upon each other, competing to catch as much attention as possible from each pair of eyes. Ranging from mono to multi coloured bags and plastic to paper boxes, your brand packaging has definitely to be different to win the race.
According to Ahmad, Nawaz and Billoo, Mohib and Lakhan, Asad Ali on the Effect of Product Packaging in Consumer Buying Decision, different packaging cues affects how a product is perceived. Often the packaging is perceived to be part of the product, it can be difficult for consumers to separate the two aspects such as packaging colour, design, and pictures can influence how a product is perceived.
Your product packaging’s colour plays a role while the consumer is in decision making. Our brain reacts to colours in many different ways, so be aware when choosing what colour to use on your packaging. For instance, green has always been used to represent eco-friendly packaging and organic in the F & B sector. Green has also been the universal sign for “correct” while red as “wrong”. Colour experts cite products with more colour added to the design as less “sophisticated”. Hence, big brands like Apple Inc choose to stick to a simple and monochromatic colour scheme.
However, it is best to study and choose the best colour to use according to your product and target audience.
Your product’s packaging can be very effective in advertising your brand and product through in-store and online. Branded products can gain better recognition and loyalty while including information such as manufacturer details and instruction of use are added points to gain confidence. Also, consider adding more details about your product, its certificates or awards (if any) to obtain trust.
There are many ways to display information and details but we think that 3M’s ear plugs packaging by Scholz & Friends Berlin GmbH is doing it in a very creative way to express, attract and retain attention.
Think about McDonalds. All its products packaging are easily recognisable with the letter ‘M’ coloured in yellow. If the same font and colour of letter ‘M’ were to be printed onto an empty can, it would very likely be recognised as a McDonald’s product. Same goes to Apple Inc. and Tiffany & Co. Apple uses minimalistic designs while for most people, the iconic robin’s-egg blue box is more recognizable than the Tiffany jewellery itself. These industry leaders have one thing in common which is being very memorable.
Last but not least, let us not forget about the main task of packaging; to protect the product. Since everyone knows how a carton box helps to contain and protect white papers from dropping and crumpling, let’s learn about connected packaging. Connected packaging is the packaging with links or could be connected to additional information/ details that is not printed onto the packaging via QR code, RFID, Near-Field Communication (NFC) or Augmented Reality (AR). Packtica Sdn Bhd has been providing various types of packaging with printed QR code for many years, protecting hundreds of businesses from counterfeits, price dumping and parallel imports within the South East Asia region.
For example, traditional electrical appliances require warranty registration with hand-written warranty cards returned to manufacturers via snail mail but now with connective packaging, consumers can easily register their warranty through our online authentication platform- CheckNow by scanning the QR code provided on the packaging. This external platform could be used to display your other products, methods of use, full list of ingredients, and so much more to the consumers.
Global players are starting to realise how to motivate consumers to establish and maintain stronger connections with their brands. At the very beginning, connected packaging was just a “technology push” but now that we are starting to see “consumers’ pull” as the newer generation increases their influence and purchasing power.
All in all, newer technologies have become more available, affordable and adaptable to help your business in many ways whether your brand needs to connect better with consumers, provide an innovative point of difference, or simply to stay up-to-date and relevant.