Copyright (c) 2007 Peter Renton
Most of you probably didn’t start your business and
immediately think about packaging. You focused all your
energy on your product, trying different formulas to make
it better. Then once you were happy with your end product,
you had to concern yourself with how to make it in larger
quantities. Then suddenly you realized you needed some kind
of packaging for your products. If this sounds like you,
you are not alone. Packaging is one of the biggest
challenges for anyone selling retail products.
Let’s start with a couple of packaging success stories.
Sometimes you can learn a lot by looking outside your own
industry, so my first success story comes from the wine
industry. The wine industry is large with tens of thousands
of companies competing for our attention with hundreds of
thousands of products. It is very difficult for a newcomer
to make a successful business, let alone become the number
one wine brand. A few years ago most people would have
thought it impossible.
Well I am here to tell you that the #1 wine brand in this
country did not exist here just six short years ago. I am
talking about Yellow Tail wines from Australia, and they
have turned the wine industry on its head. Yellow Tail
Shiraz is the number one selling red wine in America,
Yellow Tail Chardonnay is the number two chardonnay, and
many of its other varieties are in the top five in their
category. How is this phenomenal success possible from a
brand that did not exist in this country just six years ago?
Well first, you need a good product at a reasonable price,
that almost goes without saying. Most Yellow Tail wines
retail for less than $8 and they are quality wines that
appeal to a broad range of consumers. But to initially cut
through the clutter at the liquor store they needed great
packaging. All of their wines carry the same base label –
an aboriginal style drawing of a brightly colored kangaroo
on a black background. There are also different brightly
colored labels on the bottle depending on the variety of
wine. But the labeling is consistent across all their
product lines and all of Yellow Tail packaging carries this
same striking picture of the kangaroo – even their delivery
trucks. Next time you are in the liquor store just casually
walk down the aisles and you will see that their packaging
really has a strong visual impact.
There is a similar success story, although perhaps not
quite as dramatic, in the soap making industry. Adam Lowry
and Eric Ryan were a couple of twenty-something
entrepreneurs with little experience when they decided to
launch a household cleaning products company back in 2000.
They wanted to create cleaning products that were non-toxic
and used natural ingredients, but they knew it would be far
more expensive to do that. So they decided they were going
to create an expensive premium brand in the cleaning
products category. They called their company Method
Products and they decided from the very outset that package
design was going to be an integral part of their business
plan.
They looked at all the household cleaning product currently
available and decided that the packaging of these products,
while functional, was boring and uniform. In the
supermarket there was row upon row of these products with
identically shaped bottles differentiated only by their
labels. What they wanted to do was create packaging that
you didn’t need to hide in the cupboard; that you could
happily display in your kitchen or bathroom like a home
accessory. The packaging for every one of their more than
100 products has been designed to be beautiful as well as
functional.
Method Products has been successful because they focused on
the packaging as much or even more than the actual product.
Their designs have won many awards, and they have been
featured in national magazines such as TIME, Family Circle,
Redbook and Reader’s Digest (and that is just a partial
list from this year!). They have grown from zero to over
$40 million in sales in just six years. If you are serious
about getting your products into retail stores I urge you
walk into a Target or Costco and look at the range of
Method Products.
So what can we learn from these two highly successful
retail companies? I see five common elements that have
helped make these companies successful that anyone can
incorporate into their packaging:
1. Focus on your packaging – spend as much time and money
on it as you can afford
2. Keep your look and feel of your packaging consistent
across all your product lines
3. Just a color change is often enough to distinguish
between flavors within the same product line
4. Simple will usually work better than a complex and busy
design
5. Look at what your competition is doing and be different
Whether you like it or not people are going to judge your
product by its packaging. If you are currently printing
your own labels on your inkjet printer, there is nothing
wrong with that, but you will find it difficult to compete
in a retail store. If you want to go to the next level,
unless you have a talent for package design, you will need
to invest in the services of a professional. A good
starting point is often moving from do-it-yourself labels
to a professionally printed label, this alone can transform
the look of your products.
I am sure you put your heart and soul into the creation of
your products. Your customers love it and you are probably
very proud of what you have created. But I encourage you to
put some of that energy into your packaging design. Get the
most out of your packaging by making it a priority in your
business. If your packaging stays as an afterthought, a
necessary evil, then the success of your product will never
reach its full potential. Your products certainly deserve
the very best packaging you can afford.
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Peter Renton is the founder of Lightning Labels, Inc.
(http://www.lightninglabels.com ) the leaders in digital
label printing and custom labels. He writes regularly about
the label printing and packaging industry on his blog at
http://blog.lightninglabels.com .
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