Vintage Packaging Design: When To Lead With Nostalgia.

In times of uncertainty, consumers make purchasing decisions based on historical trust and feelings of nostalgia. This statement might threaten Challenger brands, but when your brand positioning aligns with the consumer’s past experiences, you can swing the pendulum in your favor. 

One means of capturing market share in such turbulent times is attaching your brand to the memories of a consumer’s childhood or stories told by previous generations. Brands can accomplish this by creating an effective vintage packaging design, whether intentionally or through an accidental alignment.  

Brands that choose vintage product packaging are not an anomaly, as vintage (including retro and nostalgia) is a packaging design trend in almost every CPG category. 

The Danger of Vintage Packaging

Before hiring a bunch of spec work packaging designers, you need to recognize the trade-off of vintage vs. modern design. Will consumers see vintage as outdated rather than back in style? Will a vintage theme prevent you from differentiating in a meaningful way?

We can answer these questions by testing your design against more current design trends. 

Before concept testing, you can save time and exit this design strategy early by reviewing the following questions. If you cannot answer “yes” to all, consider another direction for your brand.

1. Does it align with your existing brand essence? 
2. Is the “nostalgia-approved” customer audience broad enough to define your target market? 
3. Does vintage in your category represent an appearance of quality or mediocrity?
4. When reviewing your competitive landscape, will vintage be white noise?

It helps to reverse the point of view from which we look at these questions. Make sure you still answer yes to each of the following questions. 

1. Can you remove subjectivity from the design process and still find retro packaging to fit how consumers understand your brand theme? 
2. Are there enough potential consumers for your nostalgic look to gain traction or, better yet, go viral? 
3. Do consumers look at your category and say, “they don’t make them like that anymore”?
4. Does your vintage appeal stand out (perhaps promoting higher quality) against other shelf competitors? 

Vintage is In The Eye of the Beholder

An important consideration is how vintage means different things to different consumer demographics. While Gen Alpha might rock a Nirvana shirt, the feeling of nostalgia differs from their millennial parents. The daughter remembers listening to Nirvana with her mom (questionable parenting?), whereas the mom remembers listening to Nirvana with her friends. 

Is Vintage The Right Move For Your Brand?

Brands (hopefully) understand that they cannot include all packaging design trends if they want to prevent consumer confusion. For example, a minimalist packaging design makes implementing a 1970s retro look improbable. 

Deciding that the vintage style is smart for your brand means you will let go of other potential product design strategies. If your team agrees and you’ve determined that vintage helps reinforce your brand identity, it’s worth testing against other design concepts. 

Elements of a Vintage Package Design

Once ready to go retro, you must decide which package design elements you will focus on for this strategy. Let’s look at the three elements that make up retro packaging. 

Vintage Packaging

Going with a vintage package is often more expensive, limits your vendor partnerships, and impacts your supply chain. Brands unwilling to take this risk can look for existing packaging shapes that best provide this vintage look. 

The packaging experience is another consideration for those who want a throwback look. If the user experience is less satisfying, determine if the issues are correctable or if you need to go in another direction. 

Vintage Fonts

While vintage packaging discusses many generations, we limit typography to only the most memorable periods. There might be something to learn from this. Unless you go with an early to mid-century roman or gothic style, the font choice is less critical to the overall design theme.

Vintage Illustrations

The illustration most clearly defines vintage since it catches the consumer’s eye from afar.  There are endless directions you can go with your vintage design strategy. Our most important recommendation is to test whether consumers think the design is “cool” or if it leads them to grab the product off the shelf and place it in their cart. 

3 Vintage Approved Packaging Strategies 

While there are many strategies to support a vintage design, here’s a look at three key ways to leverage the benefits of a vintage design.

‘Tis The Season For Vintage Packaging 

Brands can still leverage a throwback look to push revenues forward, even if they cannot align vintage packaging designs with their brand identity. One way to accomplish this is through a holiday packaging design. The vintage aesthetic does exceptionally well during the holiday season and is an excellent way to build buzz around your brand. 

Whether through gift baskets or limited edition SKUs, consider how to take your food packaging to include a vintage look. 

Aligning With Television Nostalgia

The pandemic created a media growth opportunity through television nostalgia, and brands can align with these programs as a part of their CPG brand strategy.

While you shouldn’t create a packaging design solely based on a successful television show, paying attention to television trends helps to identify repeatable patterns. If you find a period of nostalgia repeating itself, it may be worth creating a look to sync with this era.

Brand Collaborations With Specialty & Vintage Retailers

One way to out-position other CPG brands and find shelf acceptance in boutique retailers is by having a vintage look that aligns with their customers. A sweets company can revisit its old candy packaging design and find a home with an online retailer such as Vintage Candy Co. New coffee brand may find that a mid-century design aligns with a brand like bass pro shops. 

How To Go Vintage Without Going Stale 

Package design testing is the only way to determine if the vintage look will outperform other designs. At SmashBrand, we are a full-stack packaging design agency that performs extensive consumer testing throughout the design process. Our design & testing team will determine whether a vintage look will resonate with consumers and lead to greater purchase intent for your brand. 

Book a time to discuss your project with our team.