As a designer, I learned early on that great design takes talent and ego; because for art to communicate and resonate, it has to come from the soul. That’s very personal. Soon thereafter (very soon), I learned that it’s not about me and that I needed to put ‘me’ into my work, but others needed to find themselves in it. Package design is perhaps the most basic expression of that idea. Those who participate in the creation of packaged goods know that the consumer rules and speaking to their needs with authenticity through engaging, inspiring design is job one. As jobs go though, it is certainly a moving target of cultural shifts and changes in the role that brands, trends and stylistic expression play.
A great deal about the future of branded packaging can be gleaned from observing its evolution over the past centuries and seeing its purpose morph over time. Starting out as simply as a plain container used to hold and transport goods as early as 500 years ago, to some of the first uses of what we now call ‘branding’ some 150 years ago, to today’s sizzling-hot marketing touchpoint, packaging now protects, informs, differentiates, delights and entertains. Many brands and packages serve as extensions or expressions of the owner’s identity, style and voice. In more commoditized product segments (e.g. bottled water), the package can become the primary differentiator that drives the purchase decision. So yes, express and design away, but it will fall on deaf ears and eyes unless the consumer finds themselves in its meaning.
It is in the context of past (EXPECTATIONS), present (WANTS) and future (DESIRES) that we need to decipher what your consumers will line up for.
What they have come to EXPECT is generally defined by whoever is doing it best up until now and can be harvested in conventional research. That’s where expectations are established, and they mark the cost of entry; expectations are to be met.
What they WANT may be framed through ethnographic consumer engagement and observing various failings within your market segment. In other words, getting the consumer to say, “What I really want is….”. Wants are an expression of what people do not yet have; wants are yet to be fulfilled.
What they DESIRE however is a much trickier ambition. I have seen little success in asking consumers what it is they desire because the question is vacuous yet requires an analytical response. Oh, they’ll tell you what they ‘think’ they desire, but the answers rarely lead to meaningful innovation or anything beyond parity. When they try to answer, it’s a WANT at best. When it comes to desire, it’s the old, “they don’t know what they don’t know” paradigm.
Desires are not detected. Desires are created.
Developing truly great branded design requires pivotal consumer insights and a keen awareness of their need-states and tensions, combined with visionary instinct and bold creativity— the “Midas Touch” if you will. Weighing where we have been, assessing where we are, and determining the future of packaging through trend analysis and forward projection is the balance we must strike. If you are one who requires advance proof of an outcome, branding and packaging may not be your thing. There is indeed an art to this craft of delighting consumers that goes beyond calculation and measurement. It’s often an intangible nuance through visual language and smart risk-taking that separates the wallflowers from the heroes. Designers that weave marketing science into their art, and marketers that allow art to express personality in seemingly abstract ways, are mustering to the call.
He who delights and entertains, creates desire, and does it with authenticity first, wins.
This article was written by our Vice President/Creative Director, John Silva.
