These days, gaining the consumer insights you need to build your brand is a science, not an art. This is true even in packaging design, where data-driven decisions can improve your overall shelf presence and drive sales. Here’s how consumer data can take the guesswork out of your next packaging design to create a more holistic approach.
Three Data Points to Consider
We know that 64% of consumers purchase a new product because the packaging design caught their attention. Nielsen says, “A successful package redesign can yield 7x return on investment for a small brand, and even greater returns for a large brand.” But Nielsen also notes that too much of today’s packaging design ignores consumer insights.
Instead of just guessing what consumers want and need, you can leverage the data at your fingertips.
When attempting your next packaging launch, give careful consideration to these three data points to inform your quest for consumer insights:
- What does the competitive landscape look like?
- What pain points would drive consumers to your packaging design?
- How can your design emotionally connect with your target audience?
Roadmapping consumer needs across the packaging continuum requires careful consideration of more than customer demand. Packaging design must also analyze competitor data as well as internal production capability measured against the feasibility of the approach. You’re looking for a balance between consumer demand and the cost of producing packaging to meet those needs.
But how can you extrapolate the consumer-driven data from an in-store shelf or online purchase?
Gathering Consumer Insight Data
Gathering consumer insights on packaging design can be a tedious effort centered on ethnographic interviews and focus groups. This is where companies often miss the mark; they may devote a significant amount of their advertising budget to polling customers about the product itself but ignore the product packaging entirely.
Product packaging technically falls into the category of “marketing material,” however it’s not as if you can tweak packaging design quickly after the brand reaches store shelves. Revamping a design mid-stream is not cost-effective, and speed-to-market is often important in the CPG world. The answer is to develop consumer-driven data as part of the packaging design process.
Packaging design based on concrete consumer insights will help you achieve more product sales. Data-driven consumer insights should focus on:
- Knowing what type of packaging solicits the interest of the customer. On a crowded store shelf or e-commerce site, which packaging design really gets the consumer’s attention— and why?
- Understanding how packaging design drives the consumer intent to purchase. Was it price, online reviews, simple availability? Packaging is about more than functionality; it actively impacts the consumer purchase decision.
- How does the packaging design reflect on the overall brand standard? Does it reflect corporate values and mission?
Companies that create packaging design based on color or other “fluffy” decisions without the concrete data points fueled by consumer insights will either hit or miss. Instead, you can use this data to increase the odds that your next packaging design will be a more holistic and accurate approach to impact sales.
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