Engaging consumers and delivering your brand message is integral to your packaging’s job. Consumers crave information yet yearn for simplicity. Creating the optimum balance between informing shoppers and package clutter is a key challenge in package design. Most often, the decision of what NOT to say is more difficult than the decision of what to say.
Our general rule of thumb follows brain research that suggests our mind can only hold 3 or 4 things at once. So to reduce shopper confusion and strengthen the brand’s message, it is important to purge “the nice to know” and identify the “must know” information that stands out in a loud, stimulated, and crowded retail environment.
1. Make a list of 5 or less key messages you want your brand to deliver.
2. Review, share, and re-evaluate with your team, reducing your personal list to 3.
3. Combine your total teams lists of 3.
4. Use shopper insights to evaluate and purge that combined list to one half.
5. Using the purged list, construct an informative sentence, such as: The 2/3 things I want my package to convey are…
Research continues to show that today’s shoppers make decisions in a very short time and often ignore up to two-thirds of category products in retail environments. Make sure your package design is focused and responds to shoppers’ need for simplicity.
