It's widely accepted that an attractive pack design will help get products noticed on shelf (or online), and there's hard science to back that up.
According to research by Ipsos, 70% of people agree that a product's packaging influences their decision to purchase. This is especially true of those in the 18-34 age group, with a postgraduate degree and who are reasonably affluent.
Packaging design needs to be simple, easy to identify and connect with consumers at a deeply psychological level. It needs to persuade them through clever design that everything they need and love is right inside the pack. It also needs to be immediately identifiable to guarantee repeat sales.
Tick all of those boxes, and your packaging will be successful. Until it isn't.
In the fast-moving digital world we live in, a new phenomenon has arisen in recent years. Creative fatigue. This refers to our inbuilt psychological filter which stops us noticing, or having a reaction to things that we see repeatedly. Because we are bombarded by visuals at a never-before-experienced level, creative fatigue sets in early.
If you've ever chosen a killer paint colour for your home or bought a picture or other decoration for your wall because it's just 'amazing' you'll have some idea of what we mean. After a while, you stop noticing or appreciating the colour, or the picture or the decoration. You see it all the time so your conscious mind barely registers its presence.
The same is true of packaging. After repeated exposure over time, consumers barely notice the pack design of a product, and no longer consciously connect with what drew them to it in the first place. To avoid a product entering a decline phase, it's essential to repackage and refresh.
A renewed pack design works on two crucially important levels. Not only does fresh packaging attract new customers, it also signals to repeat customers that the product is new and improved and still highly relevant to them.
Here's another interesting stat from a survey in the US: over 50% of consumers said they would buy more products if they were available in sustainable packaging that didn't cost more.
A company's pack design strategy should therefore be to define a clear shelf life for the current design and ruthlessly refresh the look on a regular basis. Adding real sustainability to that strategy will set the sales graph on a continuous upward trend.
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