Creating a premium brand through packaging is a growing trend in the cannabis industry. Brand owners are seeking to attract consumers by offering products positioned on an ‘everyday luxury’ platform, and packaging is the first line of consumer contact.
Packaging plays a key role in defining a brand and creating relevance and customer loyalty in this fast-paced market. Developing new packaging presents opportunities for new and established brands to break out of the clutter and let their identity shine.
Many companies evaluate packaging only when their brand is languishing or when a new variant is about to launch. However, we believe that packaging is perhaps the single most important element in a brands success.
As packaging and branding specialists, we are thrilled with one of the recent developments that helps allow companies to create a premium package at an affordable price – that is the advent of digital printing. Today, marketers can print low quantities with digital technologies and avoid the large quantity requirements of days past.
Redesigning a package requires companies to be very clear about their brand’s position in the market (and desired position), as well as attributes.Packaging, copy and graphics go hand in hand, and sometimes offer the only points of differentiation for a brand. Working with a branding or packaging firm can help identify and strengthen brand attributes, and define a direction for packaging and marketing.
Our advice is to keep packaging design simple, yet elegant and eye-catching. Consumers are overloaded and don’t have time to figure out your brand. If your package is too complicated, the consumer will move on in mere seconds. Simple ideas are best understood by consumers. Start with crafting the three most important aspects of your brand. Customers won’t read more than three anyway. Remember, you can communicate other brand attributes on the side or back labels—or better yet, in other marketing and advertising endeavors.
Research showsthat most shopping decisions are purely instinctive and reactive. Eye-tracking studies show that consumers read on average only seven words in an entire shopping trip, buying instinctively by color, shape and familiarity. Best sellers succeed by appealing to this buying cycle, which decides before logic has a chance.
Effective packaging makes it easy to understand at a glance, what the product is, and why it is relevant to your life. Naturally, the product has to deliver on its promise to create repeat purchases.
Today, as brand owners are struggling for market share, and trying desperately to justify higher prices to maintain profitability, packaging is the key component in this war for the consumer’s heart, mind and pocketbook.
About the Authors:
Hippo Premium Packaging is a leading provider of branding, marketing, packaging and design to the cannabis industry. Visit them at: www.hippopackaging.com, or call them at: 619.269.0939.
