Old Packaging Can and Should Learn New Tricks.

To the layperson, packaging evolution can seem arbitrary and even irritating. Everything was fine before; why does my tube of toothpaste have to look like a public bathroom soap dispenser? Why is my sports drink shaped like an extraterrestrial fertility doll? Why should my chip package appear as if it could withstand space travel?

As we get older, consumers seem to become younger and younger, and they’re easily enticed by packaging designs that cater to their on-the-go, technologically advanced, jet-pack-wearing lifestyles. They need a sports drink that can fit into an awkwardly shaped elliptical cup holder, as well as the cup holder of their 2025 SRT Viper. Their toothpaste dispensers must be equipped with a series of motion sensors. We will need our specially packaged Doritos when invited to an impromptu interplanetary tour with Richard Branson.

Your packaging needs to catch up with the times, dammit. Suppose you insist on keeping your product packaging the same as it has been since the late 1970s. In that case, you’ll miss out on the opportunities to capitalize on all of the ways you can market your product to a population that is sprinting into the future. When personal flying machines become ubiquitous, who wouldn’t want to produce the only protein shake that can be easily consumed on a hovercraft?

Evolution of Consumption

Thirty years ago, there were no such things as automobile cup holders. Even though beverage producers needed to keep their containers reasonably sized to fit comfortably in the hand, discourage moderate spillage, and fit on living room coasters, they didn’t have to be wedged into a predetermined slot. Fast forward twenty years, and suddenly soda and water bottles that don’t have a convenient shape are no longer being bought in the same volume as those that do.

Packaging designers must consider lifestyle changes and innovations when determining the best package for their products, and these changes are happening faster than ever. If you are a snack or beverage producer and your consumer base all ride Segways, your package shouldn’t inhibit their ability to consume your product while mounted atop their faintly ridiculous mode of transportation. If your consumer base all have elaborately manicured and disturbingly long nails, one should be able to consume your product while holding it comfortably between the wrists.

Fads, Trends and Cultural Touchstones

As cool and individualistic as we all try to be, we are nonetheless at the mercy of what the public decides is hip. You may have produced a fabulous product that has no peer. Still, suppose some upstart manufacturer creates a similar item with a dazzling and edgy package. In that case, your public will be enticed away to the inferior product, in much the same way jangling keys can hypnotize a dog.

Specific trends affect diverse industries in fascinating ways. Our recent fascination with food, cooking shows, organic produce, and exotic delicacies has bled into marketing strategies for products that have nothing to do with food. Beauty products are a prime example. There was a time when a hair styling product could be called “gel,” “hairspray” or “pomade,” and the public would instantly know what it was and what it would do. In the last ten or so years, however, people have stopped trusting grooming products due to their petrochemical ingredients, so marketing companies started calling hair products “milk,” “pudding,” “custard,” “smoothie,” “soufflé,” and packaging them in containers that resembled milk jugs or jars of jam. This packaging decision certainly didn’t make the products any more edible. Still, it gives the consumer the impression (albeit false) that a person could just as easily eat what they could also use to shampoo their hair.

In summation, we submit that your packaging design — while streamlined, efficient, and completely logical — is now boring us to tears. Even though you may have developed what was, at the time, the ultimate package design for your product, eventually it will begin to bore a fickle public. Packaging is like underwear; it must be periodically changed to maintain a fresh appearance.

Data-Driven Brand Development

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