How To
Beverage Packaging Design: Key Questions To Start With
We all on some level understand the importance of a packaging design in any product-driven business, especially in a beverage business. As much as a good packaging design can drive your sales up, bad packaging design can do the opposite and harm your brand image in a long-term perspective. Even if the product itself is amazing, bad packaging can shred that to pieces. If you are launching a new product, or maybe re-launching the old product, packaging design can make a huge difference and can’t be overlooked.
We all on some level understand the importance of a packaging design in any product-driven business, especially in a beverage business. As much as a good packaging design can drive your sales up, bad packaging design can do the opposite and harm your brand image in a long-term perspective. Even if the product itself is amazing, bad packaging can shred that to pieces. If you are launching a new product, or maybe re-launching the old product, packaging design can make a huge difference and can’t be overlooked.Packaging design is your one of the most important communication tool. Imagine any supermarket with thousands and thousands of products, on average consumer’s eye can catch only up to a couple of hundreds of different items. And if we talking only about beverages, the number is even smaller. Give a chance for your product to stand out from the rest. First, the consumer has to notice your product and only then he might pick it up and read the label. In general, your packaging design has to be not only attractive but also functional. A consumer has to understand what actually the product is, and trust your product, brand, etc.
It doesn’t matter if you work with experienced packaging design agency or a freelancer, the better you formulate the task, the better understanding the designer will have, therefore the better final result can be. I want to share with you a framework of questions, you should have the answers for when formulating the task for a designer. Think of it as a practical guide that will help you to think about packaging design as a multi-functional element, rather than think just about the logo, or some kind of illustration.
These questions will cover 4 key areas:
- Task
- Brand & Product
- Business environment
- Technical Information
Task
- What is the main goal of your project?
- What are the key challenges for this project?
- What expectations you have for your packaging design?
Brand & Product
- What is the name of the brand?
- What is the category of the product?
- What is your product unique selling point?
- What is the target market for your product?
- What are functional benefits of the product?
- What are emotional benefits of the product?
- What kind of traits does your brand have? (Brand persona, tone of voice)
- What is your brand promise?
- What is your marketing & communication strategy?
- What are your marketing goals?
- What kind of marketing activities do you plan to implement?
- What price category you are targeting?
Business environment
- Product category description
- What is the current situation in this category?
- What is the market you are launching the product in? (Market description)
- What are the direct/indirect competitors? Collect packaging design examples.
- What are your business goals?
- What are the sales channels that you will use? (Description, examples)
Technical information
- The number of SKU’s you are planning to launch.
- What kind of packaging will you use?
- Technical requirements (technical drawing, labeling requirements, etc.)
- Production requirements.
This framework will help you to identify the strengths of your product, brand that can actually be highlighted through packaging design. It covers all major parts and actually helps you understand better your product, brand, goals, etc. When you have answers to all these questions, you can start working with your designer on your amazing packaging design for your product, making sure that nothing essential is left out!
Original article was published in Beverage Industry Blog.
