Packaging Digest

Line extensions have increasingly become a staple of the consumer products marketplace, with every brand seemingly spawning a dozen or so other additional sub brands over time.

While some marketing experts denounce such techniques, the process does have merit -- retailers are often more willing to take on a related product instead of a new one, a line extension has a ready-made audience in existing brand customers, and if nothing else, it can be a good way to keep the brand adaptable, fresh, and relevant.

The problem is that a lot of marketers don’t really know how far their brand can stretch. They don’t have a deep, intuitive feel for the underlying strengths and values of their brand, so they don’t have a very good sense of what it can and can’t do.

To some degree, it’s an art. And plenty of prac...Read More

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I recently started reading the book Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want, by II Pine, James H. Gilmore, and B. Joseph. Although there are other books on the subject of authenticity and what it means to branding efforts, I have to say that this is certainly among the best on the topic.

The book makes a strong case that one of the most important challenges for brand managers and other marketing professionals today is in rendering authenticity in their products – being the “Real Deal” to their intended market.

Indeed, in a world in which more and more of our experiences seem artificial, shoppers are increasingly demanding that the products they buy seem authentic and j...Read More

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The staggering fact that confronts packaging designers and brand managers is that, according to some pretty extensive research, shoppers never even notice two-thirds of the products on shelves. And that’s when they’re actively looking for something in that category. Products do even worse with shoppers who are just casually browsing a particular aisle.

It’s a daunting statistic indeed. Granted some of this is a matter of merchandising. But a lot of it is entirely the failing of the packaging design process.

It points to the fact that in many cases, the piles of money companies have spent on package design are entirely wasted. It says that for many brands – particularly sm...Read More

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