5 Packaging Redesigns That Transformed a Company

The first few seconds a potential customer comes across your product are vital to their decision to follow through with a purchase. Considering how your packaging relates to your product and brand, as well as the customer experience, are all important factors to acknowledge when considering package redesign. Many companies have had drastic improvements in their sales dues to pursuing a redesign as graphic designers find relevance to world issues and events to create a more influential connection with consumers.

The Ins and Outs of Package Redesign

Companies that choose to redesign their brand have seen incredible results as today's product packaging has proven to go beyond the 3Cs — containing, caring, and conserving. Over the years, consumers have become more and more interested in what materials companies are utilizing for packaging as zero-waste, recycling, and sustainability are becoming standard practices. Therefore, the packaging is also a way to communicate a company's involvement or support as well as promote its products, which triggers a consumer's overall perception and behavior.

Customer Experience

Consumers purchase products because they utilize them in their daily lives, and carrying this idea through to the design of the packaging is essential as it adds to the customer experience. Creating new, unique packaging is a great way to encourage a positive customer experience for your product. Identify ways you can make the customer experience a memorable one, as this is how consumers will continue purchasing your product.

First Impressions

What your customer sees first is vital to whether they will move forward with purchasing your product. Add custom elements unique to your brand and develop packaging that translates what your company supports. Keep new and returning customers in mind as a first impression forms quickly and is even more challenging to change.

Form a Bond

Personalization included in your packaging provides a touch of sincerity and makes the customer feel purposeful and appreciated when purchasing your product. Identifying ways in which you can add a touch of personality to your packing will create a relationship with the customer resulting in them being loyal to your product.

Brand Recognition

With attention to each of the points mentioned above, successful branding gains traction for your products, giving customers the confidence that they can trust and recognize your company repeatedly. Establishing distinctive, consistent packaging will enhance your brand recognition giving your better results.

What is Cause Marketing?

This method of marketing may also be recognized as cause-related marketing. For-profit companies choose to pursue this style of marketing as it creates a collaborative effort between themselves and a non-profit organization for mutual benefit. The for-profit company sells their product based around a social or charitable cause, and the non-profit organization receives a portion of the proceeds. This is an excellent way for companies around the world to connect with the consumer as it shows an interest and investment in world issues and causes.

The consumer will establish a relationship or allegiance with the brand if they are displaying support for a topic that interests the consumer. If you are interested in redesigning your packaging to better suit cause marketing, there are several details to consider while cultivating your approach.

• Choose something you believe in
• Find a related cause
• Do not just contribute money
• Strong emphasis on social and earned media

Lacoste

In May of 2019, the famous French company Lacoste founded by René Lacoste and Andre Gillier in 1933, transitioned from their 87-year traditional smiling crocodile logo in the hope of influencing the care and preservation of 10 different endangered species. The familiar embroidered crocodile was replaced with embroidered images of a single endangered species on each polo. As the polo shirts are limited edition, Lacoste decided to add a more relevant twist and sent the number of each species that remain in the wild into circulation.

• Moheli Scops Owl
• North Atlantic Right Whale
• Iberian Lynx
• Yemeni Mouse-tailed Bat
• Northern Hairy-Nosed Wombat
• Mountain Chicken
• Cebu Damselfly
• Addax
• Opal Goodeid
• Hawaiian Monk Seal

Lacoste signed a 3-year contract with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for their "Save Our Species" campaign to support efforts to conserve wildlife. During this time, select amounts of limited-edition polos featuring endangered species were released with the animal focus changing each year. Polos were sold at around $180.00 apiece, and sales went directly to the preservation of the species consumers selected. All involved parties had terrific results, and the polos sold out each time they were released for 24 hours, whether that was in-store at one of the 9 locations selected or online.

Skittles

Candy lovers enjoy this sweet treat, and are familiar with Skittles' spectrum of bright colors and slogan that reads "taste the rainbow." In 2017 and 2018, Skittles decided to utilize a monochrome design which stripped their brand of the familiar, exciting colors to support and celebrate Pride. The brand announced that its goal was to portray the idea that there should only be one rainbow when it comes to celebrating and appreciating Pride.

Consumers responded in such a positive way that Skittles decided to adapt the redesign into 2019 as well. Primarily showing in the UK, Skittles partnered with Straight Forward Design to commission four artists, illustrators, and designers who are directly involved in the LGBTQ+ community to create four individual package designs. The designs were supposed to resemble what the Pride flag meant to them personally.

• Artist, Thomas Wolski
• Graphic Designer, Kate Moross
• Illustrator, Maia Boakye
• Filmmaker, Fox Fischer

This movement created a product that was not only aesthetically appealing but extremely progressive as it showed Skittles' ability to accommodate and show their support toward an event or world issue. As the Pride movement and celebration has been a recognized event in many areas around the world, this redesign was a perfect way for Skittles to gain traction with their brand and further relate to the consumer market.

Coca Cola

The Share a Coke campaign was quickly one of the most successful product redesigns in branding history as it formed an unparalleled connection with consumers and encouraged them to not only spend time with those they care about but stand behind Coca Cola in its entirety. One side of the bottle was replaced with "Share a Coke With…" and one of the top 250 names in that country, including nicknames and titles to ensure inclusivity.

As a result, consumers were drawn to the soda aisle to search for their friend's names or their own, which resulted in a noticeable increase in soft-drink sales. What was supposed to be a personalized promotion slowly evolved into a world-renown multi-product ecommerce campaign that culminated in Coca Cola offering consumers the ability to order customized bottles online for various purposes.

The personalized relationship created between consumers and Coca Cola also helped translate the united efforts of each country to support the brand's focus on sustainable packaging and water stewardship. Coca Cola has slowly transitioned into a leadership role of supporting a world without waste by improving their packaging, recycling and reusing bottles and cans, and establishing a water stewardship program to protect water resources.

RxBar

In the past, RxBar was not as successful in the health and wellness market due to competition having more appealing packaging and transparency with consumers. In 2017, the company decided that they needed to increase sales and partnerships with retailers, which meant utterly redesigning their brand. Their packaging has improved drastically since the wrapper is made of different materials that are less noisy, and they display all ingredients clearly for consumers to see rather than showcasing them in small print on the back.

The presence of health-conscious movements and diets have been booming in popularity and continue to gain traction. Adopting a transparent approach into your packaging and the product's ingredients have proven to be very impactful in the health and wellness market as this shows consumers that there are no areas of question or hidden ingredients.

Carlsburg Breweries

In 2018, this Denmark brewery was recognized globally for releasing six-packs without plastic wrapping; instead they used glue to hold the cans together. The Carlsburg Website claims that this packaging will help reduce the amount of plastic used in traditional multi-packs by up to 76%. Along with this change, they also transitioned to using Cradle-to-Cradle Certified silver inks, which helped improve the recyclability of their products, adapted a new coating on refillable glass bottles, and switched to caps that remove oxygen resulting in fresher beer for longer durations.

Making a move to more sustainable packaging creates an extreme connection to the consumer market as the zero-waste movement continues to grow in popularity. Consumers are more and more conscious not only of what goes into the products they are utilizing but how they are packaged. It is more likely that your product will have better results if the packaging is relatable to the consumer and worldly events.

Final Thoughts

As you can see with the companies discussed in this article, they made it a point to think outside the box and come up with unique packaging solutions to create more relevancy with the consumer market. More and more companies are adapting reusable and eco-friendly materials in hopes of reducing their carbon footprint. This idea is connected to cause marketing as it proves companies are finding influence and inspiration in world issues and events. While there are many more businesses that have successfully redesigned their packaging and had positive results, the above mentioned are merely just the tip of the iceberg.