Have you ever wondered how retailers are able to produce such great packaging and why is it that some major brands seem unable to ?
After all, major brand companies employ the top design companies, the same design companies who are also designing for the retailers. So why is it that for some, their packaging is less innovative than retail packaging? Are the design companies working in a different way for the major brand companies, or could it be that there’s something wrong with the way major brand companies are working with design companies ?
The truth is that over the past decade, brands have seen themselves as being under threat from retailers. Retailers have been able to get their products to market, cheaper, quicker and, let’s face it, with much a more adventurous creative approach. Whilst brand manufacturers have been stuck in the mire of efficiency, cost cutting and rationalisation programs. Some have shown a reluctance to invest in full scale design projects and have shown a lack of investment in 3D development. In an attempt to reduce the cost of the design process, there has even been a move to shift artwork out of the design studios into the repro-house, with the result that many times the final design is interpreted without reference to the marketing objectives or the values so carefully built by the design studio.
It seems that some manufactures have been concentrating so hard on looking for their efficiencies, that they have missed the point, that, “the consumer has moved on”, and now is looking for innovation, humour, sensitivity and product values rather than just, the still important, but sometimes bland brand values.
A good example of innovation and humour from Marmite
Whilst all this has been going on, retailers have taken a far more enlightened approach, stepping back and letting the creatives do what they are good at. They have also been listening to their consumers and letting them have their say and as a result, retailers have benefited from the development of new approaches to creating package design.
Far from the early ‘white products’, packaging which lacked emotion, were price orientated, superficial and usually with a poor visual communication, or the copycatting which went on shamelessly in the subsequent period. Today, retail packaging has come of age and is enhancing the richness and quality of product values. These values have also, in turn, been transposed by consumers to their perception of the whole store.
To achieve this, retailers have given their designers more creative freedom and the designers have responded by developing packaging that gives far more importance to emotion, and clear visual and verbal descriptions of the product, rather than as in the past, just focussing all the communication on the brand name. By using emotion in this way designers have been able to demand the consumers participation and, as a result, provided them with a reward. This has made retail packaging distinctive and memorable, communicating a mood and a feeling which the consumer has interpreted as a benefit.
The results are now history, retail brands are now recognised by the consumer as a creative, viable and acceptable alternatives to the major brands, retailers have grown rich on the benefits of this new participative, rather than dictatorial, approach. The design work created for them has also been recognised for it’s creativity and innovation, picking up just about all the major design awards going over the past 20 years.
So why is it that some brands are not benefiting from this same kind of creative service from their studios?
We all know that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Likewise creativity in packaging can be stifled by too many layers of management and decision making. Many brand manufacturers, who are serious about wanting to remain the consumers preference and viable in this new Century, have changed their working methodology, others need to re-think their packaging strategy:
- These Manufacturers need to exhibit more innovative and creative leadership when handling design projects, getting closer to their designers and their consumers.
- They need to recognise Package Design as a viable investment, not just viewing it as an necessary expense.
- They need to give creative freedom back to the designers, good ideas need to be recognised and immediately tested with consumers, not analysed in the board room and dissected until they die. Or fiddled with until it becomes yet another a camel.
- Their Marketing Managers need to dare to be different, they must be willing to challenge and become committed to real brand transformations that will be recognised and appreciated by consumers.
Consumers associate package design as part of the product they buy. Package Design therefore must be seen by manufactures as a viable investment in the brands future. This means that decision making for packaging should be elevated to the highest levels of the manufacturers company, creating direct lines of communication between company leaders and the creatives. Design projects should be properly funded, under resourcing a design project may save on today’s project costs but may end up costing the brand dearly in future lost sales.
It’s only by elevating the importance of packaging and allowing direct communication between the manufacturer, the designers and the consumer that brand packaging can hope to compete with the already well established, and fast growing, retail brand environment. It’s time to re-assess the values we put on the image we project to consumers through our packaging, to learn some lessons from the success of retail packaging and to re-evaluate the importance of the overall role of packaging as the brand and product communicator.
Rowland Heming ©
Far from the early ‘white products’, packaging which lacked emotion, were price orientated, superficial and usually with a poor visual communication, or the copycatting which went on shamelessly in the subsequent period. Today, retail packaging has come of age and is enhancing the richness and quality of product values. These values have also, in turn, been transposed by consumers to their perception of the whole store.
To achieve this, retailers have given their designers more creative freedom and the designers have responded by developing packaging that gives far more importance to emotion, and clear visual and verbal descriptions of the product, rather than as in the past, just focussing all the communication on the brand name. By using emotion in this way designers have been able to demand the consumers participation and, as a result, provided them with a reward. This has made retail packaging distinctive and memorable, communicating a mood and a feeling which the consumer has interpreted as a benefit.
The results are now history, retail brands are now recognised by the consumer as a creative, viable and acceptable alternatives to the major brands, retailers have grown rich on the benefits of this new participative, rather than dictatorial, approach. The design work created for them has also been recognised for it’s creativity and innovation, picking up just about all the major design awards going over the past 20 years.
So why is it that some brands are not benefiting from this same kind of creative service from their studios?
We all know that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Likewise creativity in packaging can be stifled by too many layers of management and decision making. Many brand manufacturers, who are serious about wanting to remain the consumers preference and viable in this new Century, have changed their working methodology, others need to re-think their packaging strategy:
- These Manufacturers need to exhibit more innovative and creative leadership when handling design projects, getting closer to their designers and their consumers.
- They need to recognise Package Design as a viable investment, not just viewing it as an necessary expense.
- They need to give creative freedom back to the designers, good ideas need to be recognised and immediately tested with consumers, not analysed in the board room and dissected until they die. Or fiddled with until it becomes yet another a camel.
- Their Marketing Managers need to dare to be different, they must be willing to challenge and become committed to real brand transformations that will be recognised and appreciated by consumers.
Consumers associate package design as part of the product they buy. Package Design therefore must be seen by manufactures as a viable investment in the brands future. This means that decision making for packaging should be elevated to the highest levels of the manufacturers company, creating direct lines of communication between company leaders and the creatives. Design projects should be properly funded, under resourcing a design project may save on today’s project costs but may end up costing the brand dearly in future lost sales.
It’s only by elevating the importance of packaging and allowing direct communication between the manufacturer, the designers and the consumer that brand packaging can hope to compete with the already well established, and fast growing, retail brand environment. It’s time to re-assess the values we put on the image we project to consumers through our packaging, to learn some lessons from the success of retail packaging and to re-evaluate the importance of the overall role of packaging as the brand and product communicator.
Rowland Heming ©
Title image courtesy of Freaks & Geeks: http://www.myspace.com/freaksandgeekstheparty
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