Enchanting instead of packaging

Branded products need to create identity through their packaging and capture the longings of customers in order to remain successful in future too. This is what brand expert Jürgen Gietl says.

There are too many „flat, interchangeable brands. That’s the problem,“ says Jürgen Gietl, Managing Partner of the marketing agency Brand Trust, and shows around 30 marketing or packaging experts pictures of well-known beer bottles and labels. The experts from the consumer goods industry and agencies are exchanging views about packaging design at the „Brand Dinner“ network event series organised by HP Deutschland GmbH in Frankfurt. „I want to hear other people’s ideas and exchange views, I’m not here as a customer,“ says one marketing expert. Along with other specialists, keynote speaker Gietl will be offering ideas and inspiration this evening.

The brand expert presents case studies that are not always new, but memorable. What breweries evidently do wrong, coffee producer Nestlé can do better. The Nespresso brand is managed with integrity and thus systematically builds up trust, says Gietl. You can recognise it by its distinctive style, „which makes the character, i.e. the content of the brand, visible“. The style elements of the Nespresso brand are clear and assertive: „You go to the Nespresso boutique instead of to the shop“. Nespresso uses the stylized square – visible in the logo, in the shape of the packaging, and in the arrangement of the packages in the boutique. The management consultant entitled the Nespresso packaging as „enchanting instead of packaged“.

ADVERTISEMENT

The exhibitors of FachPack offer you a complete, customised solution with the right materials, the right function, and the right logistics. More information can be found here.

He goes on to present another example of a strong brand –  Rapha, an online cyclist clothing retailer. They not only supply sports goods, but also „give their products a soul with stories“. “ Rapha also tells stories via the packaging,“ explains Gietl. When you unpack your new cycling shoes from the box, you also find an envelope with a sheet from which you can read one or two cycling success stories or background information about the product. „What role do we want to play in the lives of our customers,“ asks Gietl. Gripping brands intensify orientation, strengthen trust and allegiance. “ As concepts of what is desirable,  brands are micro-ideologies against shortages in life“.

In times of surplus and digitization, it is important to know the wishes, desires and shortages of customers in order to be successful in future too. „How am I to be desired if everything is always constantly and immediately available? Gietl gives examples of  branded products that create identity through their packaging. For example the gift boxes of Milka chocolates for Mother’s Day. Customers can have their own individual photo printed on the box. Or the Coca-Cola bottle with a first name on the label. The longing for romanticism or the desire for brands with more responsibility – these are all typical longings of a time in which increasingly undifferentiated, unlimited offers from the digital world pour in on us. Brand manufacturers can eliminate these shortages too,  for example by providing information or via the design of the packaging.

The next event in the HP Brand Dinner series on packaging design will be held on 22 May in Stuttgart, followed by one in Düsseldorf in September. For further information, please contact Nicole Ceccantini, Business Development Manager Brands & Agencies, HP Germany, at +49 40 34971-1006.