Ask Yourself the Right Questions

Developing an attractively designed package that appeals to shoppers from the shelf to the pantry can be a daunting task. Retailers have to know the right colors, shapes, verbiage and more to design something that’s truly beautiful, functional and communicative of its contents. But before they can determine the right attributes for a package, retailers must first ask themselves some critical questions.

We asked several package design experts to share with us some questions retailers should ask themselves before launching into the design phase with store brand packaging. Five of the most critical questions follow.

1. How do our customers see us?

Members of a retailer’s staff — regardless of seniority level — often will give different responses to this question, says Michael Duffy, managing partner, Equator Design, Chicago.

“If you get a succinct answer from everybody, and they say, ‘I stand for quality and choice,’ ‘value and innovation’ or whatever it might be, then obviously, everything measures up to that,” he says. “But very rarely do people say the same thing, so I think you really have to run that question deep first and really believe in what you stand for because design can’t really exist without a point of difference.”

When they’ve determined all the qualities for which they stand, retailers should then distill them down to three brand pillars. Any development afterward — whether its package design, optimizing the in-store experience or something else — should be measured against the pillars, Duffy says.

“And then I would ask the questions, ‘Are they enough? Are they true? Do you really still believe in them?’ And … if you ask your customers in a roundabout way, your customers should be able to give you answers to relate back to what you, as a business, believe those brand pillars are,” he states. “And if you’re doing that, you’re communicating the right messaging to your customer.”

2. How could the packaging reflect, complement and enhance our existing brand?

Although this question sounds like an obvious one to ask, Raul Paredes, director of new product development with Perrysburg, Ohio-based Owens-Illinois Inc., says brand owners often miss opportunities to express their brands through packaging or limit their thinking to only one element of package design — such as label design.

“When we’re designing proprietary glass packaging for brands, we have an array of options to consider: shapes, colors, embossing, labeling, decorating, closures and more,” he says. “All of these elements can be leveraged to reinforce a brand’s architecture and persona.”

Glass packaging, Paredes notes, can convey masculine or feminine, traditional or contemporary, and premium or value messages, for example. These characteristics create entry points for consumers and allow these people to experience the brand.

“Thinking through what you want the packaging material and structure to convey about your brand — and how [it should do so] — can drive many of your decisions,” he states.

3. How will the package benefit consumers post-purchase?

It’s critical to consider how a package stands out on shelves. However, it’s also important to consider a package’s post-purchase life.

“Once a product ends up in the cart, there’s still a whole lot of life behind that,” says Jill Ahern, consulting services director for the Packaging Technology Integrated Solutions division of HAVI Global Solutions, Downers Grove, Ill.

Retailers need to consider ease of carrying, storing, opening, closing, dispensing and disposal when designing packaging for store brand products, Ahern recommends. Every one of a consumer’s interactions with a package should be a positive experience.

“That’s an opportunity where [store brands] could do an even better job than their branded counterparts,” she says. “And that really leads to creating loyalty. … Our goal is that [the] package would perform so well that they’re never going to switch back.”

4. What does our competition’s packaging look like?

According to Liz Fisher, creative director at Chicago-based Kaleidoscope, it’s important for retailers, after asking themselves this question, to map out the competitive landscape — even across categories — and outline the key players against which they intend to compete for shoppers’ dollars.

“This will help you quickly understand the retail environment and shelf-set visual, breadth of offering, etc., which all feed into the category language,” she says. “Gathering this information allows for strategic decisions on which traditional category cues need to be leveraged versus which you can take your own spin on to stand out on shelf.”

Paredes agrees about the importance of asking oneself, “What is the competition doing, and how can we be different?” When doing so, it’s important to ponder the package’s shape, color and texture. For instance, when his team worked with the Beech-Nut Nutrition Corp. to design a jar for the Beech-Nut brand’s new line of baby food, it quickly discovered an opportunity to differentiate, as all baby food jars on shelves looked the same.

“The shelves were dominated by the short, uniformly round shape that we’re all familiar with, making it hard for brands to differentiate themselves,” he explains.

In response, his team looked to the shape and profile of the jar to make the Beech-Nut products stand out on shelves.

“We came up with a beautiful glass jar with a tapered honeypot shape that created visual interest while offering some practical benefits,” he says. “The shape makes it easier to move a spoon around inside the jar to reach all of the contents, and angles the label toward consumers to enhance the visibility of Beech-Nut’s branding.”

5. How much risk will we take to be revolutionary?

Jean-Pierre Lacroix, president of Shikatani Lacroix, Toronto, notes that he seldom has seen this question appear on a client’s packaging brief. This reality could be because it’s one that typically causes the highest level of anxiety and a lack of alignment.

“We are in a world of imitation and incrementalism, with everyone wanting to be innovative and game-changing, but only once some other brand has forged the way” he says.

With the “collapse” of price gaps through the commoditization of the industry, it’s difficult for retailers to maintain a significant price wedge with national brands currently focused on a downward margin spiral. As such, new brands will need to be bold, brave and focused on bigger bets.

“The days of incremental sales increases through an imitation game are long over, and this, for me, is the biggest game-changer for the private label industry,” he says. “Trying to stand out by offering similar products to national brands just does not cut it anymore, and leading retailers such as Loblaws and Kroger have realized the power of offering game-changing offerings.”