IN DEPTH: PACKVERTISING

How packaging can be emotional as well as functional

Whatever the package, it can work harder, offer more, engage the consumer and boost customer satisfaction if it uses a little something extra – such as Packvertising

-By Andy McCourt

Conventional marketing wisdom says that, to sell more FMCGs, you need to advertise across the five main media – TV, print, radio, outdoor and online/social media. However, the emergence of the ‘pack’ itself as an advertising medium, driven by digital variance and personalisation, presents some compelling arguments for exploring new possibilities.

Purchasing decisions made by ‘looking on the shelf or POS display’ represent the largest percentage of consumer buying decisions. Add ‘looking online’ for the home delivery folks and it is a well-established fact that packaging appearance and perceived brand promise are as vital as ever for market share.

The statistics vary depending on whose research is used, but the parameters start at around 60 per cent and go as high as 82 per cent. That’s between six and eight out of every 10 shoppers make their final buying decisions in-store.

Sure, brand loyalty and special pricing, points and competitions can make a difference before entering the aisles but few consumers these days make a shopping list with brand names in them.

(l-r) Sappi’s Lars Scheidweiler and the Multisense Institute for Sensory Marketing’s Olaf Hartmann at the Blue Couch Packvertising interview

Brand X baked beans are more likely to be just ‘baked beans’ on the list and if a ‘brand Y’ shrink-wrapped pack of four cans at a dollar per tin sits alongside the $2 product – there’s an 80 per cent chance that will make the sale.

This isn’t guesswork, verified research from bodies such as Inmar Intelligence Inc. and the Multisense Institute of Sensory Marketing have been researching and helping brands, retailers and healthcare systems since 1980, to make it possible for their consumers to do more, save more, connect more, and thrive in an everchanging world.

That change includes massive increases in footfall in-store post-pandemic. Inmar says that 75 per cent of consumers altered their brand preferences in 2021, and 80 per cent are actively looking for the best deals, no matter what brand, when they visit stores. That figure could go even higher given skyrocketing food and FMCG prices due the energy crises and conflicts such as that in Ukraine.

So, whatever the package, it can work harder, offer more, engage the consumer and boost customer satisfaction if it uses a little something extra – such as Packvertising.

Buzzword or opportunity?

The practise of advertising on packaged goods is not new, but embracing the ‘Packvertising’ philosophy is, as evidenced recently by SAPPI – originally South African Pulp & Paper Industries and now a global solutions company active in 150 countries.

Sappi hosted an interview episode of what it calls the ‘Blue Couch’ series, which investigated what is meant by ‘Packvertising’ and how brand manufacturers can best present their products at the point of sale, taking onboard all the sensory and emotional factors that influence us all.

Olaf Hartmann, managing director of the Multisense Institute for Sensory Marketing explained in an academically researched way that, apart from protecting goods, performing a function and fulfilling legal requirements; packaging is a communications medium and Packvertising should appeal to all of the senses, since we are all automatically and constantly influenced by small, sensory stimuli.

This goes all the way back to primeval instincts, such as sensing danger from wild beasts, sensing safety or sensing threats.

“All about reaching the emotions” – Olaf Hartmann, MD of the Multisense Institute of Sensory Packaging

The average human makes up to 35,000 decisions a day based on automatic ‘fast brain’ stimuli. This prevents overloading the ’slow brain’ (known as System 1 –automatic, fast and System 2 – slower, cognitive, biased – (ref: ‘Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow’ book by 2002 Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman).

Effective Packvertising should harness the System 1 heuristic, automatic, sensory decisions that then send signals to the brain’s System 2 to form what is known as cognitive bias. We all have it whether we like it or not – we are irrational in this respect, we form habits and ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ irrationally.

Put very simply, for example, the System 1 brain may deduce “I am thirsty, I need to drink”. It sends this information to the System 2 brain, which might decide “I’ll pull into this 7-11 store” and then use cognitive bias to decide what kind of drink it will buy.

To underscore this, Coca-Cola knew about it as long ago as 1915 when it briefed a bottle designer to: “Create a bottle so distinct that it could be recognised by touch in the dark, or when lying broken on the ground.”

Coke may not have called it Packvertising 107 years ago – but that is what its soft drink bottle achieved.

Not psycho-babble: it’s who we are

This may all sound like psycho-babble but Kahneman’s System1/2 research is used by all major FMCG brands to increase sales. It can even affect whether a person will donate to a charity.

Hartmann cites a study where people were approached in the street to donate to a worthy charity. They handed the targets one of two clipboards explaining the benefits that their donation would achieve and the bona-fides of the charity. One clipboard had a smooth surface on the back and one had a rough, almost sandpaper like surface.

The results were, that three per cent of those holding the smooth surface clipboard donated, while 26 per cent of those holding the rough surface donated. Hartmann explained that this was because the roughness signalled “danger, I must do something” to the automatic System 1 brain – something he compared to rocks and caves and “the breath of a SabreToothed Tiger”. It’s like the primeval instinct of fight or flight.

Bad hair day or good pasta day? The packages speak for themselves

Having said that, Hartmann noted that it is all contextual: “We don’t buy brands, we buy categories. We need to understand the context in which the brand is perceived by the customer,” he said.

Drill buyer wants a hole, not a drill

He used the well-known marketing proverb that a person buying a 5mm drill doesn’t really want the drill – he or she wants a 5mm hole. Beyond that, they really want a sturdy shelf for a wall and even further, they may want to create a new look for a room within their house, along with the appreciation of their family for being creative, caring and a DIY whizz. Does this sound like Bunnings – the ultimate category-killing success story – to you?

Lars Scheidweiler, head of packaging Solutions at Sappi, explained that sensory signals can affect buying decisions and substrate choice for labels, cartons and boxes is as important as the printed graphics and embellishments that may be used in the converting process.

He said, “The way people make purchase decisions in the face of overwhelming choice is very complex. Subconsciously, the brain is constantly at work making judgements about sensory signals such as touch, smell and sound. To attract customer attention, manufacturers should not only pay attention to functionality when selecting packaging material, but also never lose sight of the tactile experience”.

Of importance to converters, Scheidweiler emphasised that creative Packvertising designs must be achievable in production – and sustainable.

“Consumers must have a good feeling about buying the product and knowing that the materials used and their ultimate recyclability, adds enormously to that emotional feeling of satisfaction.”

The entire interview can be seen on this link: https://www.sappi-psp.com/the-bluecouch-series

Seven paths that take you on the road to Packvertising

Sydney-based packaging design consultancy Grounded Packaging, started up as recently as 2019 by New Zealand-born Ben Grant and Josh Kempton, is on a mission to create circular packaging economies and eliminate plastic waste in our oceans. Grounded also knows all about Packvertising and has published seven tips towards achieving it:

1. Bring your brand to life

In Australia our biggest supermarket holds more than 20,000 products and in other parts of the world, it is close to double that. Ironically, we’d probably struggle to name 50 of those brands.

2. Treasure the brand’s unique packaging assets

These assets play a critical role in helping brands get noticed. With our brains always looking for shortcuts, these assets are effective because they trigger recognition, meaning and memory, in categories loaded with competition.

3. Let the product speak for itself

Ben Grant gives the example of Russian designer Nikita Konkin, who took packaging design to another level, by allowing the product features to come to life, creating surprise, joy and more importantly aiding how one navigates the range. The picture ‘speaks for itself’.

4. Make a real statement on shelf or online – anywhere

Grant uses the example of Monday Haircare. Using a monochrome pink package, they are making a statement that is reflected in their sales. The brand is flying off shelves, selling 10 bottles of its shampoo and conditioner every minute.

5. Make packaging a part of the brand experience for consumers

Anything is possible when it comes to making packaging part of the brand experience. From the unboxing to employing the packaging as part of gameplay, to integrating technology into the experience, such as augmented reality linked by QR codes.

6. Respect and embrace sustainability

Beer six-pack rings are notorious for harming sealife. Saltwater Brewery make theirs from biomass – you can even eat them

Grounded cites the team at Zero Co, who are turning ocean plastics into home-cleaning and personal-care products. And in the process of eliminating single-use plastics from laundries, kitchens and bathrooms. with production choices, context and the increasing amount of research data that explores the inner motivations of consumer decision making.

Sustainability is not just essential, it is a powerful Packvertising strategy.

7. Balance freshness with consistency

What this means is keeping what makes the packaging unique while injecting new life. Absolut Vodka is referenced as a brand that continues to deliver on this time and time again. They employ limited edition packaging designs that look like works of art.

Absolut Vodka keeps consistency of its product but ‘packvertises’ with fresh, localised graphics in multiple versions

(Acknowledgement: www.groundedpackaging.co )

In summary

Effective Packvertising can be a complex undertaking, combining design creativity of digital converting can make testing, adjusting and re-testing relatively inexpensive compared to older mass production methods. The results are speaking for themselves – a well-researched, tested and implemented Packvertising campaign will boost sales and market share for all brands, big and small.

The product still needs to live up to the promise – all good marketing starts with a great product but, the saying “If you build a better mousetrap, the world won’t beat a path to your door” still holds true. You need to extol the benefits, reach the emotions, persuade and convince.

To paraphrase the old adage: “It pays to Packvertise!”