Overview
Who doesn’t love candy? Even the health-conscious consumer has that one sweet weakness. But if everyone craves it, why is breaking into the candy business so tricky, and why do most candy packaging design strategies fail?
Many brands achieve local success at the candy stores and craft fairs, but struggle to evolve into a mid-market candy company. There’s a serious disconnect between selling face-to-face and standing out on store shelves.
It’s easy to blame legacy brands and their massive recall, powered by creative packaging designs, but is that the whole story? Or are we mistaking strong sampling feedback for market-ready validation? Too often, candy founders assume sugary products will always move. They won’t.
Winning takes more than good taste. You need a comprehensive strategy that begins with packaging, as it’s your first impression. Whether you’re using custom candy boxes, a pouch, or mylar bags, your structure and materials, ranging from cardboard, foil, and plastic to eco-friendly materials, must serve both form and function.
This also includes sustainable packaging solutions and unique design features, such as pastel colors or high-end printing. Even your shipping box and custom boxes should be working to win customers. However, before we delve into flexible packaging or structural choices, let’s discuss the crucial initial steps that precede any design.
Who is your target customer?
The answer isn’t as simple as choosing between kids and adults. Identifying your target consumer involves examining their lifestyle, routines, responsibilities, and experiences. If age alone defined your audience, we’d limit bright or playful visuals to children, but that doesn’t reflect how sweetened foods are consumed.
Today’s successful candy packaging design goes deeper. Whether it’s a custom candy packaging concept or an innovative candy bag, your strategy should reflect real behaviors. Great candy packaging boxes focus more on consumer engagement. It may include interactive packaging for brand storytelling or corrugated packaging for durability and shelf impact.
From sustainable packaging choices to retail packaging solutions, every packaging box should align with how your audience shops and lives. The ideal candy packaging concept seamlessly combines form, function, and emotional appeal, and custom packaging makes that possible.
Knowing the lifestyle of your candy consumer.
Purchase drivers vary widely depending on lifestyle. A health-conscious shopper may love candy, but overt health claims or nutritional messaging on the front can discourage a purchase. This is why, like all food categories, lifestyle plays a crucial role in candy branding and the overall packaging strategy.
When thinking about how to make candy packaging effective, you need more than just visual appeal. Whether you’re creating packaging for candy and chocolate packaging or experimenting with candy floss packaging ideas, your approach should be tailored to your consumers’ behaviors and expectations.
The best candy packaging resonates with specific moments of use on the go, as an indulgent treat, or a shareable snack. From standout candy box design to playful candies packaging ideas, every choice matters. This includes selecting the appropriate types of candy packaging and refining your food packaging design to meet real-world needs.
The responsibilities of your consumer.
Why is your candy being purchased? Is it a guilty pleasure, providing momentary satisfaction for the consumer? Or is it a quick treat used as a reward for their hard work in the office, at the gym, or in fulfilling domestic responsibilities? Perhaps it is an exhausted and glucose-deprived teenager feeling worthy of a reward after completing their schoolwork?
These questions may seem unnecessary, but they help us develop more effective strategies to understand consumer behavior better.
The habits of your consumer.
It’s essential to understand when and why your ideal customer purchases candy. Premeditated purchases made for a movie night sync with verbal and nonverbal experience-focused purchase drivers. Whereas a momentary splurge, where the person needs a dose of stress relief, better resonates with feel-good messaging.
An important consideration for any packaging refresh is maintaining the brand elements that a consumer associates with a memory. If a Mexican hard candy company changes its packaging without considering this, it could reduce the brand recall built up over the years that grandma spent giving this candy to her grandchildren.
While industry trends change over time, shifting your product packaging in line with the trends may negatively impact your revenues. Just because it’s cool to be healthy doesn’t mean that making your product “appear” healthy will help your candy hit home with that shopper.
The Experiences of Your Consumer
This subject is equally relevant for existing brands as it is for new ones. Attaching your product to an experience is a way to ensure your candy product sells for years to come. For this reason, Warren Buffett has been and continues to be bullish on See’s Candy.
Here is a quote from the Oracle of Omaha himself.
“They had taken a box on Valentine’s Day to some girl, and she had kissed him … See’s Candies means getting kissed,” he added. “If we can get that in the minds of people, we can raise prices.”
Not only is Mr. Buffett assured that this association creates repeat business, but it also allows him to increase profits without a negative impact. Now that is powerful!
Who is Your Target Retailer?
The retailers that carry your product are equally important as the consumer who makes the purchase. Having done your research, your ideal consumer informs you of their favorite candy retailer. However, we do not complete our job here, since most shoppers make candy purchases whenever/wherever they find the product.
Boutique Candy Stores
There isn’t anything quite as stimulating as walking into a boutique candy store, such as Rocket Fizz. Colors seem to explode off the shelf with seemingly every type of gummy candy, hard candy, and chocolate candy known to humankind. However, these candy shops are pretty selective about what they carry.
If you feel like your candy is something special, then you want to state that a legendary boutique candy store carries your product. To succeed, packaging design for candy retailers needs to stand out more distinctly than by being loud and proud. Finding a niche within the candy category could help a new brand connect with candy consumers.
Convenience Stores
Unless offering heavier margins and custom displays, very few convenience stores will be interested in new candy brands. Want your candy to sell in the most impulsive of all food and drink retailers? Then think about your product packaging beyond the candy wrapper or box that holds the goods. Shelf talkers and POP displays must expand on your sales copy, giving candy consumers more of what they want to hear.
Grocery Stores
Big or small, grocery stores are where we make the bulk of our candy purchases. If you want your sweet treat to turn profits worthy of a significant acquisition, then position yourself in at least a few major grocery stores. When approaching these established grocery retailers, they will inevitably ask, “Why should we do business with you?”
Do not leave this job only to your national sales manager. Your candy packaging design should already address the future questions to be asked. Mediocre product packaging is a primary reason grocery buyers won’t answer your calls or emails. Merchandisers are not immune to being impressed by excellent packaging.
Simulated product placement testing is crucial for success on any grocery store shelf. That’s why we include testing in our packaging design process. Testing in a simulated buying environment allows you to communicate to the purchaser how your product will compete against major brands. Less risk, more reward- everybody wins.
Big Box Stores
Secondary packaging plays a crucial role in the success of a candy brand transitioning to stores like Costco, Sam’s Club, and Smart & Final. While there are certain branding elements are carried from a candy bar to a candy box, the consumer who buys in bulk differs from one who buys based on convenience. Bulk packaging also has visual differences, as well, when considering the unique shape and the distance at which consumers view your candy.
How can your candy package design draw in shoppers from the center of these wider aisles to where they can reach out and grab your product?
Novelty Stores
Since candy appeals to a broad audience, certain novelty retailers find that carrying sweets makes for a compelling impulse buy. M&M’s and Snickers are not the ideal products for novelty shops like Urban Outfitters, which are looking for more unique candy packaging than what you find on every old shelf.
Here are a couple of candy packaging ideas you can find in novelty stores.
Cute Candy Packaging: Nothing says “buy me now” like a candy with an adorable teddy bear or color scheme. When you combine ‘awww’ with ‘yummmmm’, it’s easy to see why these become grab-and-go purchases made alongside clothing, books, and knick-knacks.
Vintage Candy Packaging: Throwback packaging does well in these novelty shops. If Snickers hopes to capture this audience, adopting a retro chocolate bar packaging design may be a consideration that helps differentiate this product from its typical appearance.
Candy packaging design that customers feel.
Knowing how to package candy starts with understanding the form and function of your options. A candy wrapper and a candy box are the most common structures, and combining them can maximize both protection and design real estate. The flat surfaces of a box are ideal for conveying your brand and message, making it an essential tool in sweets packaging design.
Think of creative candy packaging, such as the Cadbury egg, where the chocolate candy packaging doubles as a point-of-purchase display. This type of club pack candy packaging elevates the experience, making the box an integral part of the story.
Whether you’re developing chocolate bar packaging for the premium chocolate market or refining your gummy candy packaging for mass retail, your strategy needs to reflect the product type and the consumer. Rigid candy packaging should focus on durability, while gummy packaging design might lean into fun, flexible shapes and visuals.
From creative candy packaging ideas to sweet packaging that surprises, every decision in your design candy design process should serve both your customer and your bottom line.
Candy wrapper packaging design.
How can you bring experience to your candy bar packaging design? While you might feel a branding disadvantage compared to a candy box, you have a more unique opportunity for customers to feel your product. Touch offers a longer-lasting brain connection than eyes alone can create.
Get more out of your almond-filled chocolate candy by using a packaging material type that allows a customer to feel the ridges of the almond. Or at the very least, feel the rise it creates above the chocolate layer.
Candy box packaging design.
We do not reserve kinesthetic purchase drivers only for candy wrappers. Your flat box can use raised fonts on the wording and imagery, bringing the product to life. What if your almond-filled chocolate candy had a raised almond on the front? Or how about a fruit candy packaging design with a scratch-and-sniff feature on the box?
Candy packaging design strategies.
It takes more than candy packaging design elements for your brand to stand out. Attractive packaging with a beautiful illustration alongside compelling copy can help increase purchase intent. However, sometimes we need to go above and beyond to prevent candy from going stale.
Giving the gift of candy.
Gift packaging is a fantastic pattern interrupt for your candy brand. Gift baskets are no longer reserved for Easter egg hunts. Whether with your products or in partnership with other food brands, capture more attention with periodical gift boxes and baskets.
Mini candies.
Big sales often come in smaller packaging. Bite-sized candies are no longer reserved for Halloween. Smaller sizes make sense in this health-conscious society, where people struggle to give up their guilty pleasures. From several standpoints, smaller candy options may be a necessary part of our packaging design strategy. Here are a few of the reasons.
- The “option” to promote a specific calorie content on packaging sells against its sugar content.
- It prevents mid-enjoyment remorse that people experience after a few bites of candy.
- We view this packaging as a daily reward rather than an occasional treat.
- Smaller sizes are more socially acceptable for school children’s lunch boxes.
- For premium brands, smaller sizes help mitigate the sticker shock associated with luxury.
Perhaps these appear to be a sales pitch, but consider this: we do not make candy products. We are a design agency specializing in the packaging industry, offering our expertise on a subject as needed.
Promote sustainability.
What began as a trend in dark chocolate has now spread to many other candy categories. Sustainable ingredients and eco-friendly packaging enhance a brand’s appearance, promoting health in an otherwise unhealthy product category. While you shouldn’t aim for trickery, expect an increase in candy sales if you appear to be the better of two options in consumers’ eyes..
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Packaging that performs.
Want a best-selling brand? SmashBrand is a CPG packaging design agency that helps you win on the shelf. Our packaging design methodology employs a proprietary strategy and testing formula that provides a competitive advantage in any retail environment. Book a time to discuss your project with our team.
Michael is a partner and the Director of Testing and Insights at SmashBrand, where he spearheads SmashBrand's Path to Performance™ process, a proven, data-driven framework designed to put high-performing consumer packaged goods on the retail shelf. In this role, he believes that packaging acts as a product's "front door", and is almost entirely responsible for shaping how consumers perceive and engage with the brand, ultimately determining whether they will buy the product or a competitor. Thus, he defines the testing methodologies SmashBrand uses to optimize packaging designs to align with the brand's strategic vision, ensuring aesthetic appeal and market viability.
With an educational background and an early career in computer engineering, he transitioned into the entrepreneurial space, launching and owning CPG brands and quickly discovering a knack for innovative market strategies. At SmashBrand, Michael leverages this expertise to lead the research team, focusing on a holistic, data-driven approach to market research, product design, and consumer testing. His philosophy centers on the importance of understanding consumer perceptions, a viewpoint he considers vital for the success of any consumer product.
At the core of Michael's approach is an iterative cycle of specific consumer testing and integrating the insights gained directly into the creative process, leading to optimized and high-performing packaging. This commitment to a data-driven strategy ensures that the packaging designs and branding strategies SmashBrand develops are not just based on aesthetic or conceptual appeal but are proven to resonate with consumers. Over the past decade, he has integrated an agile methodology and a proven platform for consumer testing into SmashBrand's entire operational framework, solidifying the agency's reputation for guaranteeing market performance.
With a unique blend of technical skills, entrepreneurial spirit, and consumer insight, Michael Keplinger offers a multidimensional approach to brand development. His ability to connect seemingly unrelated elements for innovation and his commitment to consumer-centric optimization makes him an invaluable asset to SmashBrand and its clientele. Under his leadership, brands don't just imagine the potential success of their consumer products—they experience it.
To book Michael for speaking engagements and podcast appearances, please email hello@SmashBrand.com
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