What is brand voice? It is your brand’s personality. It’s found on your social media accounts, on your website, and in the way that you manage customer service. If your company is a story, your brand voice is the main character, allowing customers to relate to your company and its journey.
Brand marketing firms know that brand voice should echo through every part of your brand design, including packaging design. The packaging for your product is what your customers interact with before they try your product. It creates joy and anticipation. It also makes your brand memorable, giving a visual cue to consumers and reminding them to purchase your product again.
How can you carry your brand’s voice into your product packaging? First, you need to understand brand voice and the role that it can play in packaging design.
Understanding Brand Voice in Packaging
When shoppers are looking for a product, the packing gives them visual cues that tell them who you are. This helps them make quick decisions about your product. Brand voice helps with your market differentiation, allowing your brand and other brands to appeal to different parts of the same market.
Your brand personality includes:
- The overall aesthetic of your brand.
- Colors and patterns.
- Fonts, logos, and other imagery.
- The interaction between packaging and product, such as clear packaging.
- The materials that make up your packaging, their origins and impact.
As you target specific markets, consider how that market relates to your brand voice. For instance, you can consider:
- What are their core demographics, such as age or location?
- What is your company doing to be more sustainable, and how does your target market connect to that goal?
- How will your market relate to your colors, logo, font, and imagery?
- How will you show that your product and packaging are reliable and durable? What is your product’s journey from creation to your customer’s door, and how will it hold up in transit?
- Where is your customer base purchasing your package? Are they buying it in the store or are you shipping it to them? How does this influence your packaging and branding?
- How well can you highlight your packaging on social media and in other media? Is it appealing to your audience?
Success Stories: Packaging that Speaks Volumes
These brands have done a stellar job creating a connection with their customers through packaging.
Quaker Oats has positioned itself as family-oriented, reliable, and knowledgeable. It has moved from being an oatmeal company into other oat-related products, all while successfully maintaining its brand personality. Emotionally, it appeals to those who are looking for opportunities to care for themselves and their families through good nutrition. It is also able to benefit from market differentiation from other health-branded products, since it is perceived to be more satisfying.
Simply Nourish is a natural food company that creates pet food. Its packaging has earth tones and a straightforward font style. Its personality is wholesome and natural, attracting pet owners who are looking for a more holistic food for their dog. Its marketing also includes images of happy pets in outdoor locations, connecting with pet owners who are interested in nature-based activities and a natural lifestyle.
ESPN has a fast-paced sports brand personality that appeals to the sports fan, particularly younger men. Its logo is action-oriented, with a typestyle called Speedline.The red shows power and passion for sports. In 2022, it rebranded its NBA broadcasts, developing a futuristic animation style while speaking in an authoritative editorial style. ESPN is oriented toward the focused sports fan and those who want to keep up to date on sports through a trusted source, and its personality is one of authority. Dedicated sports fans have a high trust level in the brand.
The Impact of Packaging on Consumer Perception
Packaging design shapes consumer perception and helps shoppers decide what brand personality they relate to and trust. How does packaging shape consumer perception of your brand?
- The size of packaging communicates with your customers. Larger packages can communicate value for money. Smaller packages can communicate high quality. However, the rest of your brand personality must also align with this message.
- The shape of packaging must fit easily onto the shelves. It should be simple and economical to ship. At the same time, it needs to send a message about your product’s personality - is it whimsical, serious, energetic?
- Writing and logos on your packaging must communicate core messages to your audience. Consider what your customers must know about your product, and consider how to communicate that on your packaging.
- Packaging should help your product stand out on the shelves. It needs to be unique, and differentiate your product from others in the same category. Distinctive packaging shapes, colors, patterns, and textures can all transmit information about your brand’s personality.
Brand Marketing Firms Help Infuse Personality into Packaging
Your brand personality should shine through in every type of communication that shoppers have with your brand. Brand marketing firms have years of experience effectively communicating a brand’s voice.
Working with a brand marketing firm, you can:
- Gain a stronger understanding of your market.
- Gauge your market’s potential response to your product packaging.
- Carefully curate your brand’s personality to appeal to your desired markets.
- Experiment with different packaging materials, sizes, and imagery that can convey that brand personality.
- Conduct tests with your market or markets to determine how different market segments respond to your branding.
Packaging: An Extension of Your Brand Strategy
As you develop packaging for your products, remember that this packaging is one part of a greater whole: your overall brand strategy. Your product packaging must be consistent with that brand strategy, reinforcing customers’ feelings about your brand. Are you a vibrant, fun company with bright packaging in engaging shapes? Are you a company that’s known for its commitment to sustainability, a company that uses minimalist and recycled packaging?
Your packaging is an ambassador for your brand. The visual that packaging creates in the mind of your customer base is one of the first steps in conveying your brand personality. Working with a brand marketing firm, you can plan how to accurately convey your brand’s voice and how to translate this into packaging.
Visit us today at Hangar 12’s marketing motherlode to learn more about brand marketing strategies and how we can help you craft a high-impact brand voice.
