The most valuable assets for companies that market consumer packaged goods are their brands. A brand is composed of multiple components, including a name, symbols, warranties, perceptions, experiences, and expectations. In theory, packaging can be a brand-builder because it either communicates or shapes those components. To put theory into practice, packaging needs to be an integrated part of brand management, beginning at the concept stage and continuing throughout the life of the brand.
A company’s mission is its reason for existing. From it flows its goals. Achieving them is the purpose of the overall competitive strategy. Departmental strategies, in turn, need to collaborate in support of that overall competitive strategy. Given the unmatched value of brands and given packaging’s ability to build them, to think of one is to invoke the other.
The trade press does an excellent job in featuring companies that have used packaging to build brands. Such coverage seldom, if ever, details the underlying roadmap that the company followed. That’s understandable, since strategies are inherently secretive. Inquiring minds are relegated to knowing the results, but not how they were achieved, in terms of starts-and-stops, progress-and-setbacks, etc. One’s learning curve, however, can be supplemented with fundamentals and best practices, applicable to specific stages in the life of a brand.
First, there’s the brand launch. The associated product is supposed to satisfy a consumer need or want, yielding the owner an acceptable profit. Such implies that some market/consumer research has been performed. As a result, the brand-new brand should be simple to understand, relevant to the target consumer, and different (even if only by perception). Nothing else would make sense, given the risks and high failure rates associated with launches. A launch needs every assist available. And none is as versatile or impactful at the point-of-purchase as packaging.
Over time, a brand acquires equity and an identity with consumers, the type and breadth of which reflects the brand’s standing within its category. But for a brand to be timeless, it must keep up with the times across generations of consumers. Again, packaging plays a role, exemplified by such slogans as, “New look, same stain-fighting power.” It’s not only a reassurance to loyal users but also a courting of new users. The facelift, therefore, needs to retain features recognized by the former while incorporating features attractive to the latter.
One way that brands are leveraged is by line-extension, variety based on a product variable, whether flavor, size, strength, gender, age, physical form, or something else. The idea is to extend the brand’s positive associations across such varieties. That’s not to imply that line-extension has to be stepwise. Some brands are launched with line-extensions. Either way, the line needs to be tied together with a family look. Again, the tool is packaging, but it’s not always a matter of graphics. For example, variety in physical form can require different structural packaging (shapes, materials, etc.).
Another way that brands are leveraged is by brand-extension, parlaying the brand into different product categories. Here, the limitation is one of elasticity, how far the brand can be stretched, or to what degree it can be a “rubber-brand.” An example is Unilever’s female personal-care brand Dove (not to be confused with the ice cream products of the same brand-name.) Despite retaining its name and logo, the brand was extended into the male personal-care category, thanks in large part to battleship-grey packaging.
Under a different scenario, Procter & Gamble’s Tide is a super-brand with iconic packaging, but would that combination work in an extension into the category of bar soap? It’s possible, but not certain, and contingent on a host of factors. A packaged product, by definition, has two components: product and package. Both components must be sufficient for the combination to be sufficient.
No one denies that time, effort, and resources need to be expended in decisions about the brand. But a wise brand manager knows that’s also true about its packaging. One the other hand, a brand manager who foregoes, for example, package design research methodologies, relying instead on personal evaluation, is missing the boat. Such misguidedness is less likely when top management has communicated its recognition and support of packaging as a brand-builder. It’s even better when the commitment is reflected in how packaging, as a function, is positioned within the corporate hierarchy.
Rather than standalone assets, some brands are part of a stable of brands, across divisions or subsidiaries. Such situations benefit from centralization of the packaging function. Therein, communication channels can be used to share packaging-related information to the brands in need. This avoids reinventing the wheel, a savings to be appreciated under the pressures of speed-to-market.
As a concluding note, the leveraging of packaging as a brand-builder is not entirely an in-house undertaking. It can involve the contributions of outsiders, such as designers, suppliers, and contractors, among others. A way of looking at it is that success requires that the right team be aboard the brand-wagon.
Sterling Anthony, CPP, consults in packaging, marketing, logistics, and human-factors. A former faculty member at the Michigan State University School of Packaging, his contact info is:100 Renaissance Center, Box-176, Detroit, MI 48243; 313/531-1875; [email protected]