Packaging is a brand's "face" with stories

[China Packaging Network News] The task of packaging design is very simple, is to attract the attention of potential consumers, and then persuade them to spend money to buy products.

Four months ago, we wrote an article about the “value” of product packaging, and discussed how brands use creative packaging to attract consumers. We say that packaging is a story of the brand's "face."

In addition to the fight value, packaging design can also help products in the market to create differences in other ways, that is, to make consumers believe that the product can meet their needs, it is exactly what they want (or may need). For example, luxury packaging tends to use high-quality materials and exquisite work; fresh food packaging may open a transparent window, allowing you to see the food inside.

“When brands try to provide consumers with more personalized experiences, consumers also expect that product packaging can meet similar needs,” said British market research and consulting company Mintel in their newly released 2016 Global The packaging trend report wrote in this way. This means that when the needs of consumers are more detailed and diverse, product packaging should also respond to this.

The report predicts consumer packaging trends that will affect the packaging industry in 2016 based on consumer demand for eco-environment, personalized customization, and mobile interaction. We follow these trends to talk about how packaging design will consider new customer needs and expectations, so that they are willing to accept a brand of products.

Concise and clear message

People who like “simple packaging” must be among the few. When we talk about such packaging design, we often say that such a design discards miscellaneous invalid information. It looks refined and pure, and it is easy to be unique and catch the eye.

This is true, but now consumers have higher requirements for their "right to know about product information." Ying Minte’s report pointed out that 58% of British consumers will pay attention to the information of product ingredients on the packaging, and 76% will pay attention to the use of artificial preservatives. For such needs, packaging design will increasingly consider clean functionality - when consumers are more concerned about the composition, security and functionality of the product, but do not want to see too many puzzling content, the brand How to convey this information simply and clearly? After all, this will enable consumers to have a clearer and more intuitive understanding of the products in the package and shorten the time for them to make decisions.

The CLEAN RESERVE series of perfume brand CLEAN directly writes product-related information on the packaging box. CLEAN's brand concept is "modifying high-quality aromas with pure, sustainable raw materials." Their white carton carries the texture of wood, and the center is clearly marked with the name, flavor, keynote, and creator of the product. After the source of inspiration was opened, more detailed product information was written on the inside of the box.

The same applies to the product itself. Bottles made of Spanish oak are used for perfume bottles. The bottle body is a simple square with sleek edges. The front linen material also shows product information. The overall package conveys the brand's philosophy, and what consumers want to understand is also evident at a glance.

CLEAN RESERVE Series Packaging Image Source: davidhelddesign

For products with complex information, achieving this goal may be even more difficult. But there are also designers who have made creative attempts and are in a somewhat serious and rigid industry. Industrial designer Joey Cheng has done drug packaging design for the pharmaceutical brand Tylenol and is currently just a concept. The Care+ series for children is shaped like a pill and can be divided into containers and measuring cups. The front of the package is a cute cartoon pattern. The big letters read "I have a fever," "I cough," and "I feel pain." The efficacy of the drug, there are more specific drug information and instructions for use on the back of the package. This packaging design can be concise, fun and practical, and it can bring consumers closer.

Tylenol Care+ Packaging (concept) Credit: Joey Cheng

Softer

Flexible packaging is a product package that we are accustomed to in our daily lives. Soft snack bags, flat bottoms, and ready-to-stand laundry liquid packaging all fall into this category. But what you may not know is that flexible packaging is also one of the fastest growing categories in the packaging industry in the past decade. According to reports from Smithers Pira, a consulting firm specializing in product packaging and printing, the global flexible packaging market is growing at an average annual rate of 3.4%. In 2015-2020, sales will reach US$248 billion.

There are many reasons for the popularity of flexible packaging. Consumers like it to be lightweight, easy to carry, and well sealed, and some can be re-sealed after opening. These advantages in the eyes of brands and manufacturers mean that it is easy to transport and better preserve and protect products.

Manufacturers also consider the use of relatively less material than a sturdy box, thus reducing the cost of materials. Another important point is that flexible packaging can be easily adjusted to various shapes, sizes, and shapes. Adding zippers, bottle caps, and handles to the top is not a difficult task. Therefore, it has many functions and is suitable for different products.

The most representative of flexible packaging is food flexible packaging. The mixed fruit pulp brand NOKA uses soft stand-up pouches to pack products with a small lid on it, which is a bit like the kind of “suckable jellies” in our supermarkets. This packaging design actually conforms to the previous trend, and it can be conveyed succinctly and clearly. Product information, such as what kind of fruit and vegetables mixed, weight, what quality certification. The raw materials - fruits and vegetables printed on the white stand bags are bright and beautiful, without attention, you may not have found, in fact, the upper and lower parts are two kinds of raw materials.

NOKA's official explanation of the use of this packaging is similar to what we have said. To sum up is that it can ensure that the product is fresh, maintain moisture, and light and durable.

NOKA package Picture Source: NOKA

The scope of application of flexible packaging is so wide, and development is very fast. In addition to seeing its advantages, brands also need to pay attention to the differences, and do not allow themselves to be submerged.

More changes in size

For packaging design, there is an index that is not often mentioned but is extremely important: size. It is impossible for any product designer and brand to ignore size issues, and its product strategy for the brand is becoming more and more important.

The Mintel report lists some facts: Compared with the past, families all over the world gradually think that large-capacity milk is more valuable; 39% of British consumers want to see more small bottles of alcoholic beverages; 50% are health-conscious The snack food consumers expressed their willingness to try new products in small scale. "This shows that as the brand's product portfolio continues to expand, in order to meet consumers' needs at different times and in different occasions, they have to provide more specifications and sizes - smaller and larger," the report concluded.

The increasing consumer demand for product sizes is actually related to their lifestyle. Take the example of a young office worker in the city. They live alone or together with one or two people. It would be more appropriate to buy a small amount of food; they pay attention to their body type, and high-calorie foods are good for small packages. On the other hand, this group of people has a relatively limited cost of living and is also more budget conscious. They will compare their size to purchase more cost-effective products.

Meat, sweets and beverages have been packaged in smaller sizes in recent years, which is related to people's awareness of health promotion and concern for body size. Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, and Dr Pepper, which account for 90% of the US carbonated beverage market, have introduced small cans of Coca-Cola. The competition has also extended to the small packaging market. Sales of Pepsi's 12-oz cans, half-liters, and two-liters have declined by 2.6% year-on-year since 2011, but small-packaged products are selling better year after year, increasing 1.8% annually.

Now, consumers of carbonated drinks in the United States “want to drink less, but they still enjoyed their favorite brands,” said Marty Ellen, chief financial officer of Dr Pepper, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

The size of different specifications is to meet the needs of different groups of people. Source: thedieline

Mini cans help Pepsi sales rise Source: ispot

Green packaging is no longer talk about it

What is the "green packaging" or "sustainable packaging"? Simply put, packaging also has its "life cycle" like people, and it will affect the environment in which it is located. We take raw materials from nature, shape and shape them through design and processing, use this packaging to hold the product, and then use it to dispose of it: recycle, incinerate, compost, or bury it. The so-called green packaging is to reduce the use of raw materials in this process as much as possible, or to minimize the damage to nature when dealing with it.

Today, more and more people are concerned about the environment. The lack of brand awareness of environmental protection is not only a problem of “leaving irresponsible impressions,” but they are likely to face the loss of consumers. 63% of U.S. consumers indicated that their packaging for recycling and other uses was the main driving force behind their purchase of a product. These consumers want to live a more environmentally friendly life, and if a company's products can "help" them to do so, they can naturally win over. Ying Minte's report put forward two suggestions for this purpose: the use of alternative materials in the packaging (such as palm fiber, reed fiber can be used instead of traditional plastic boxes), or the use of recyclable materials.

Big companies have started this practice. In January of this year, McDonald's replaced the new packaging. It also announced that it will complete all packaging by 2020 using 100% wood fiber (used in paper towels, cups, bags, boxes, trays), raw materials for recycling or certified Forest. Tetra Pak, a well-known Swedish product packaging company, announced earlier this month that they want to promote milk packaging “Tirelord Biomass Packaging” in the US market. This packaging uses a renewable bioplastic that is completely derived from degradation. Sugar cane on the pasture. This packaging has been used in Europe since January last year, but this has just begun in the United States. Tetra Pak plans to ship 100 million pieces in the United States.

McDonald's new packaging Picture Source: Mcdonalds

Small companies try even more boldly. In 2014, Tomorrow Machine, the Swedish design studio, received a lot of attention in the “This Too Shall Pass” series of food packaging design. They use naturally degradable materials (beeswax caramel and agar) as packaging for olive oil, raspberry smoothies and basmati rice. These packages are environmentally friendly and look simple and bright.

Anna Glansén, one of the founders of Tomorrow Machine, told the “Curiosy Daily” that the design of this food packaging was inspired by bionics. They wanted to use nature to solve the problem of environmental protection, so they thought of the various peels of fruit. And egg shells.

Products from left to right are: basmati rice, olive oil, raspberry smoothie

Over time, smaller and smaller pictures Source: Tomorrow Machine

Digital printing may appear tipping point

“Food goods”, “goddess”, “little fresh” and “pure men”... In 2013, Coca-Cola launched a series of “nickname bottles” that left a deep impression on many people. In the summer of this year, the nickname bottle with the Internet's popular name printed on the packaging helped Coca-Cola's sales in China increase by 20% over the same period last year.

This is a Coca-Cola marketing campaign "Share a Coke". The event actually started in Australia in 2011. Coca-Cola printed the most common 150 names on Coca-Cola bottles to establish contact with more consumers. This marketing was very successful, bringing its Australian market sales up 7%, and in 2014 when it was promoted in the United States, it achieved its first growth since 2000.

Here is not an example of marketing packaging design that is mentioned here. It is: digital printing. Coca-Cola's product packaging adopts digital printing methods, and because of the success of the Share a Coke campaign, digital printing applied to this product packaging has become a global focus.

The biggest difference between digital printing and traditional printing is that the latter is a printed version, printing millions of copies based on stencils; and digital printing directly uses a printer to print digital images without the need to constantly change the plates. That is to say, using digital printing to print product labels or packaging, you need shorter time, can appear on the market in a faster time, and it is easier to customize products (The Coca-Cola packaging with the name is well-satisfied Consumer's personalized needs).

Coca-Cola also launched a special website, consumers can customize the bottle you want online, determine what the packaging printed on the source: Shareacoke

In February of this year, Coca-Cola launched a new packaging for Diet Coke. This time the theme for the “It's Mine” facelift marketing cooperation with Hewlett-Packard, first designed 36 basic patterns, then use HP's printing software random combination, automatically generated millions of non-heavy Coke bottle packaging patterns Print it out. The printing and packaging brands that Hewlett-Packard collaborated with include Budweiser and Oreo, both of which apply digital printing to consumer private custom products.

Diet Coke Packaging Source: gafollowers

Ying Minte’s report points out that digital printing has accounted for 10% of the global packaging and decoration market and its development is better than the industry’s expectations. The report also predicts that digital printing will usher in a tipping point in 2016, expanding from limited editions and customized products to mainstream product packaging.

In the "mobile" environment, there will be more ways to interact

The world is becoming more and more intelligent, so is the packaging design - it may be smarter than you think. The QR code printed on the packaging has long been nothing new; while many people don't yet know what NFC or BLE is, they have already been used in product packaging. Brands are aware that they are facing consumers who are obsessed with the mobile world, so they try to communicate and establish dialogues with these people through mobile interactive technologies.

You may be more familiar with near field communication (NFC), near field communication (NFC). Apple's recently launched Apple Pay uses this technology. As long as the NFC chip is built-in, data transmission and information exchange can be performed between two nearby points without network connection. Apple Pay pays by using a mobile phone near a POS with an NFC module embedded.

Now, NFC technology is also used in many product packaging. You may not want to get it. Alcohol brands go very fast here. In the past, wine brands often suffered from fake wine problems. Now they have NFC chips embedded in the packaging. Consumers can install corresponding apps on mobile devices equipped with NFC technology. The mobile devices are close to the packaging to identify whether the bottle is opened or not. The true and false wine. The companies that did this were the Scotch whisky brand Johnnie Walker, the French Hornets company (putting the chips into wine bottles), and the bottle cap supplier Guala Closures Group announced last month that it would cooperate with the chip company NXP to produce this NFC-enabled device. Bottle caps.

The pharmaceutical industry has also begun experimenting with such technologies. The packaging of Tylenol Care+ drugs we mentioned earlier plans to add BLE and NFC technology. Consumers can use it to learn more about drug information and get help with it. In January this year, Jones Packaging Inc., a medical product packaging company, was already working with electronic system supplier Thin Film to develop a similar smart packaging solution.

There are many possibilities for using the new mobile interactive technology in product packaging.