by Miriam Hara | Jul 13, 2023 | Branding, Design, Marketing
The influential role product packaging plays in expressing a brand’s identity and values can never be underestimated.
Impactful packaging design is not just about the visuals; it’s also about how effectively it communicates and ‘walks the talk.’ Effective packaging design hinges on several elements. As with anything design or marketing, it should be clear and simple. Customers should understand the product’s purpose, its target audience, and its benefits at a single glance. And more so than ever, in today’s world, honesty is critical.
Apply the “Do No Harm” rule
A package design should not over-promise and under-deliver because this can and will harm brand loyalty. Packaging should accurately represent a brand’s personality. Whether the brand is fun, sophisticated, or quirky, this should shine through in the packaging design. An emotional connection between the brand and consumers is vital, and that often starts with the packaging.
For certain sectors like food, packaging also serves a regulatory role. It needs to comply with the legal necessities of displaying nutritional information and ingredients, which also adds to the brand’s transparency and trustworthiness.
Sustainability in packaging is the new language that your brand must speak, loud and clear.
In the context of the ‘Do No Harm’ rule, packaging must also respect the environment. Sustainable packaging is no longer a ‘nice-to-have,’ but a ‘must-have.’
This calls for a shift towards materials that are renewable, recyclable, or compostable, reducing the ecological footprint. A commitment to sustainable packaging demonstrates a brand’s awareness and responsibility towards the environment, which in turn resonates with the increasing number of eco-conscious consumers. It’s the embodiment of doing no harm not just to your customers, but to the world we all share.
Impactful packaging design, on shelf and on line
Your package design should create impact and command attention, regardless of its location on a store shelf. It should be noticeable and compelling, whether viewed from the top, middle, or bottom shelf. Knowing the placement and position of the brand upfront should weigh into the design of the package. If the brand is positioned on the bottom shelf, the package has some heavy lifting to do. I needs to perform in ways that if the brand was at at eye level.
And know, packaging must also perform virtually. In today’s digital age, the impactful design stance applies to both physical and digital spaces. A brand’s packaging should stand out just as effectively in online marketplaces, maintaining clarity and appeal on any screen size.When it comes to online retail, packaging needs to remain compelling even in the absence of physical interaction. Detailed images and descriptions should help guide the customer’s decision-making process.
Let’s talk about the ‘in’, ‘out’, and ‘on’ of the package
The ‘in’ is about the product itself – it must be of high quality and meet the expectations set by the packaging. The ‘out’ pertains to the external design – the colours, typography, and imagery that should correspond with the product inside. The ‘on’ relates to communication – brand logos, essential information, and the overall message conveyed to the consumers.
All these elements play a vital role in ensuring the brand ‘walks the talk’. Advertising and messaging may initially draw the consumer to the brand (‘the talk’), but it is when they pick the product off the shelf that the brand needs to deliver on these promises (‘the walk’). Any discrepancy can confuse customers and damage brand integrity.
To ‘wrap up’, excuse the pun, crafting impactful packaging design is a delicate balance of aesthetics and strategy, creativity and clarity, and critically, promise and delivery. It’s not merely about standing out on supermarket or pharmacy, any retail shelves or online platforms. Packaging is about consistently representing the brand’s identity, values, and promises. Essentially, it’s about ensuring that your brand not only talks the talk but walks the walk.
Please let me know your thoughts on packaging and what it needs to deliver. Let’s talk!
by Miriam Hara | Nov 10, 2015 | Agency, Business Success, Creative, Latest
Clients who are involved in the client agency relationship do not realize that they have a direct impact on the creative their agency produces. We hear so much about agencies and their creative prowess and how ‘the creative’ talent establishes its reputation. But there’s hardly any mention of the trust factor and how that directly impacts the creative output. The creative process, whether it’s for personal endeavours or professional ones is always based on the ability of the creative mind to be at ease. To feel comfortable in the exploration of the obvious and not so obvious.
There are so many articles and blogs written on brainstorming practices… in group settings or solo ones, but very few tap into the premise of the brainstorming. In order to brainstorm you need a mandate – again, it could be a personal mandate or a professional one, brought forth from a client. If the client fosters the creative team with not only information, but with a sense of team and with a sense of knowledge that the outcome will be nothing short of awesome, then that is a setting for success, for all parties. I have the pleasure of working with clients whom have fostered that environment within our creative team. After the creative process, it’s a delight when we present and the client gets excited and says, “Wow, I wasn’t expecting that”.
Developing creative is an exciting and passionate business to be in. Fostering trust in a business relationship, is the cornerstone of creating creative that wins.
As with any relationship, creating and building on trust is a two-way street. Here’s a few points from both perspectives for the professional relationships:
The Creative Agency Built on Trust:
Know the brief. Ask questions. In order to evolve a brief into a sparkling, unique, rare but concise creative, you need to get involved… and that means that you need to admit that you don’t know. Clients will respect that and this will showcase the intelligence driving the creative outcome.
Empower your client. Never assume that the client doesn’t have a creative bone in their body. Clients know their business better than anyone else, including you. Within their brief, they will articulate gems of creative ideas… and they don’t even realize it. Take those gems and work them into creative that expresses their ideas. They will recognize them as such, and realize that, yes, you really do listen.
Always deliver and more. If a client has asked you to be at the table and provided you with a brief, it’s not only to fulfill the order, it’s to add value to the creative process in order to provide a creative outcome that sings. The damage of over promising and under delivering will break all trust and will start eroding the credibility that has been established. Just because you’re in the business of creating doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to be flighty and irresponsible.
The Client Built on Trust:
Share the knowledge. The more the creative agency knows, the better they are at creating and developing creative that is thought provoking and on target. Understanding the market and the intricate details of the industry is key to creating creative that will push the envelope.
Advocacy is key. Give credit where credit is due… and not to the creative agency, but to the management team. It’s important for the upper layer of management to know that the partner at the table is an instrumental element to the team.
Garner stability. There’s nothing more hurtful to a relationship based on trust than asking the creative agency to continuously fight for the business, especially if they have met 100% of your expectations. Asking a creative agency to continuously have to prove their right to be at the table, is a short term vision of what should be a long term relationship.
by Joyce Turner-Gionet | Aug 21, 2015 | Business Success, Creative, Deadline, Design, Latest, Management, Problem Solving
Do you have a creative routine or ritual?
If you’re creative, work in the creative field, or simply find yourself a slave to routine or ritual, read this book: Daily Rituals. How Artists Work, by Mason Currey. You’ll feel better about it all — your procrastination, your late-night working habit, the note pad beside your bed on which you jot things down when you wake at 3 a.m., the odd, quirky things you do that help you get creative and the odd, quirky things you do when you’re just not feeling it!
“An encouraging read for creative types, and a delightful peek into that world for the rest of us.”
– NPR’s Morning Edition
A quirky little gem
My girls were shopping in Toronto not long ago and found this quirky little gem in a Queen Street bookstore. To me, it’s not a book you read once, then pass on to a friend; although I’ve recommended it to many people. It’s not a book I store on my bookshelf. I leave it out, so that I can pick it up whenever I need to remind myself that, just like anyone who earns a living in a creative field or as a freelance, some kind of schedule to your days is imperative, deadlines are (mostly) immutable and like the rest of us, even the great ones grappled (and still grapple) with the universal issues of time and productivity.
It’s not a book about how to be creative, it’s a book about how some of the most brilliant creative minds of the last 400 years found the time, energy and willpower to be creative on a (mostly) day-to-day basis, through their own routine or ritual.
Creative Routine or Ritual
As Currey conveys in his Introduction: This book is “about the circumstances of creative activity, not the product; it deals with manufacturing, rather than meaning. But it’s also, inevitably, personal … I wanted to show how grand creative visions translate to small daily increments; how one’s working habits influence the work itself, and vice versa … The book’s title is Daily Rituals, but my focus in writing it was really people’s routines.”
Igor Stravinsky only composed music when no one was around to listen. When creatively blocked, he had the routine of standing on his head!
A few teasers to tempt you to go out and buy (or borrow) this little gem …
According to Currey, Stephen King has the daily routine of setting himself a quota of 2,000 words to write. He writes every day of the year! Frank Lloyd Wright never made a single sketch until the entire project was completely worked out in his head. Andy Warhol kept “everything” that was sent or given to him in what he called his “time capsule,” a brown cardboard box. James Joyce kept to no schedule at all and often entertained people, including his tailor, from his bed. Playwright Henry Miller wrote all night long and then one day, discovered he was really a morning person. Thomas Wolfe stood up while writing, using the top of his refrigerator as a desk. Truman Capote did all his writing in bed and wouldn’t start or finish a project on a Friday. In the early days, Alice Munro kept her writing a secret from everyone but those closest to her. Glenn Gould ate one meal a day and on the days he was recording, ate nothing at all. His routine was to go to bed at an hour when most of us are just getting up.
Daily Rituals is a fascinating glimpse into the artists’ private lives, personal habits and unique routine preferences — some of them peculiar, others downright bizarre (I won’t spoil the read by telling you more here) — peppered with sometimes astonishing quotes from the artists, unearthed during Currey’s extensive research. The excesses — smoking, drinking, drugs, food, sexual proclivities — are revealed, as is the other side of routine excess, as in Joan Miró’s inflexible commitment to vigorous exercise and Woody Allen’s obsessive need to shower in order to invoke the creative muse.
Fresh and Fascinating
Perhaps the most delicious aspect of the book is that you don’t have to read it beginning to end, as you would a novel, because it’s not.
Currey’s book is series of vignettes, colourful snapshots of the artists if you will, written in a style that flows effortlessly to and fro. You can start at the beginning and read through to the end; read when you have a moment, one or two accounts at a time; start at the end and work backwards; or pick up anywhere in between. It’s that kind of book.
In some ways, this is a “How To” book, a ‘ ways to manage your time’ manual, written from a completely fresh and fascinating perspective that reveals how those famous “others” did it. It reminds us that, in the end, we’re all human and it’s often our idiosyncracies that make us interesting and unique. It’s part motivational, part inspirational, and all of it is a darned good read.
Daily Rituals. How Artists Work by Mason Currey.
Mason Currey Website
by Felicitas Ritter | Feb 26, 2014 | Agency, Latest
Are you a believer in the necessity of a true blue in-house corporate marketing team, or do you prefer working with easy-going agency types? How different do you think is the kind of creative developed by the people who sit closest to the source, versus those looking in from the outside? And is there a benefit to collaboration? Having experienced working for both sides, it is my opinion that it is always best to mix things up.
There are definite benefits to having marketing experts on-site: in-depth product knowledge and understanding of corporate brands; access to merchandising teams and approving authority; ability to facilitate quick turnaround… and when you’re really under pressure to meet a deadline, you can just stand behind your writer or designer and direct… but please don’t. No one appreciates that and I promise you, it won’t make the process go any faster!
Corporate marketers from experience and proximity know better what senior management is looking for and what is most likely to be rubber-stamped. And there is no doubt that the trend toward in-house resources is growing, mainly because of the need for cost saving. But there are ways to maintain brand integrity and still get interesting, strategic creative without sacrificing the whole budget. And sometimes it really does take input from key creative people from elsewhere to be able to steer a company in a better direction.
Outside agencies naturally come armed with a broader perspective on current trends
simply from having worked with so many different types of clients, and on a wide variety of projects. They are true innovators because their jobs depend on it. If an ad agency offered their clients the same cookie-cutter ideas they certainly wouldn’t be in business for long.
Ultimately, understanding first what the strengths are of the in-house marketers, and then looking toward an agency to supplement whatever might be lacking, is the best way to utilize resources. For example, if you have a great strategic corporate team, but lack the production capability, than that’s what you need to look for in an agency. Marketing with a mind to bring varied experiences and skill-sets to the party allows for everyone to mix and mingle to collective advantage.
by Miriam Hara | Feb 16, 2014 | Branding, Creative, Latest
Developing creative for a brand ad, regardless of the medium, is often fraught with many obstacles. The main one being that there are so many people involved in developing brand creative…other than the creative team, at times it becomes impossible to please everyone. That very statement should give all marketing and creative professionals pause. How is it that the creative process and more importantly, creative decisions all boil down to personal preference?
As a marketing brand professional how do you really add value to the creative process?
This really should be a no-brainer as the creative brief should outline all the objectives, character, reasons to believe and tonality. However with the speed of business being what it is today, we often find the creative brief is ditched in an all out effort towards “getting the creative out”. When that happens, much of the creative decisions become based on interpretation and personal preference. While some may argue that being the brand ambassador or manager (herein brand professional) of the said brand allows them the freedom to dictate preference, I would challenge that thought.
Brand and branding is not about individual likes or dislikes. A brand’s life cycle may span over many brand professionals. That being the case, it is important that the brand’s tone, style and voice be maintained. Evolved, for sure, but consistent. More importantly, I believe that the brand professional’s main job is to make sure that the brand attributes and its physical demeanor should be maintained. While I wholeheartedly agree that success is in the details, the creative details should best be left to the creative team. The big picture, the overall impression, the quality, the benefit statements and the appearance of the brand is the responsibility of the brand professional… without question! Thus, total consideration must be given when comments directly touch on these attributes. However not all requests for changes are equal… or relevant. A good way to judge the importance of these considerations is by allocating a mark for each comment directed at “making the creative stronger”. Judgement on if the change will effect the overall delivery should constantly be a forefront of every request to change.
It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of all that is creative. Enthusiasm is always necessary for any creative project to get off the ground… and the creative process initiated. All brand professionals are creative in their own right. However, developing creative and not hindering the creative process is also a skill set that is required to make brand creative to outstanding emotive brand creative.
