by Lisa Pierce
Take a second and think about some of the products you’ve used today. Probably coffee or soda. And toothpaste and shampoo. Maybe cereal or soup, and hand sanitizer.
Just like you, other consumers interact with products like these every day — and they do it first through packaging. More and more, shoppers are opting to buy this or that product based on how much they like the package (FoodNavigator.com 10.7.08). Remember boring ol’ milk before the Dean’s Milk Chug? That single-serve, reclosable, portable plastic bottle transformed the dairy market. Kids thought they looked so cool carrying it around — and sales flowed like never before (Brandweek 6.22.98).
Plenty of success stories center on convenient, high-performing packages. But there are also some, uh, challenges. Will bisphenol-A (BPA) survive as an effective component of metal cans? Moms have already killed it as a hardener for plastic baby bottles. And what’s the deal today on portion control? Smaller packs are handy, but, man, they sure use a lot of packaging material, so they’re not the greenest choice. And with shoppers having to scrimp as they suffer through the Great Recession, bulk packs often emerge as the better deal. What will win out with consumers? Convenience, sustainability, economics or health?
Packaging matters, and not just to those of us at Iconoculture’s new Global Packaging Advisory Service. Get inside consumers’ hearts and minds to understand why they prefer one container over another. Because the right package — one that delights and engages — can give your brand a huge competitive advantage.
