Storytelling Through Packaging: How to Tell Your Brand Story

What’s more important; the product or the packaging? Tell your brand story in a totally unique way.

When you envisage storytelling, you’ll think of words on a screen or pictures on a page. It may be fictional or anecdotal, but either way, it’s a process. It’s a way of expressing how different events unfold and what the outcome might be for those involved. However, telling your business story can be a bigger and better task than that. You can tell your brand’s story in a different way; it doesn’t have to be through words.

Storytelling through packaging—who’d have thought? In fact, companies have already gone down this route; you’ll have seen it yourself with your own eyes, perhaps not even realizing it. A company’s packaging choices indicate the type of brand they are; do they care for the environment? Are they here to entertain and make you look your best or are they serious and straight to the point?

Packaging goods that tell your story is a clever marketing tactic that’ll get people talking; talking about you and your brand! How do you go down this route however, and how can you come up with something personalized and original to wow your customers?

What does your packaging need?

Your packaging could possibly be the first impression of a business to a consumer. As a huge part of a customer’s experience, it can make or break how a person sees you as professionals. Your packaging needs to be recognizable and distinctive as well as have that impressive ‘edge’ to it.

Having the right look and features is essential. Think about the overall design; the sizes and shapes, the colors and print, as well as the materials used collectively. Your packaging could even be a part of a wider marketing campaign, where people can associate your packaging with a particular offer from a certain advertisement they may have seen previously. There are so many stories to tell and so many ways to tell them!

Think of a company who pride themselves on helping the environment. Their products won’t be full of harmful materials or chemicals. In fact, they might even do their best to promote this further. They may express the fact they use packaging that is eco-friendly, or they may try to use less cardboard packaging when shipping out a customer’s order. In this example, this particular company has incorporated their message of helping the environment into their packaging arrangements.

Your brand

Think about your own brand and what you stand for and discuss how you can intertwine your brand’s ethos into the way you ship out your own products and how your products will look on the shelves.

Are you a family brand? Opt for a fun packaging style that is attractive and colorful to your customers. Do you pride yourselves on being eco-friendly and kind to the environment? Use easily recyclable materials and those that have previously been recycled. Perhaps make a note on your packaging to encourage the recipient to recycle, and tips on how to recycle more effectively in future.

To help you create the most suitable packaging to tell your story, you need to plan. Get together with your team and discuss your brand’s values. Talk about marketing ideas and ways you can incorporate your way of thinking onto something your customers will see first. How can you send out your items? Is it worth considering a box making machine manufacturer to create different sizes of storage boxes in bulk? Think of the materials and print you will need and whether this is within your budget to obtain these.

Take some inspiration

When you’re next out and about, take a look at some of the products from brands you buy regularly and analyze their packaging choices. You’ll see so many examples of brands that have gone the extra mile to make their packaging as appealing as possible to their chosen audience. Having the right packaging can give brands a boost in sales, so it makes perfect sense to put it high on your list of priorities.

Customers sometimes choose to stay loyal to one particular brand instead of constantly trying to find brands that are cheaper. Through this connection, brands can form positive relationships with their consumers through their packaging. When shopping in a supermarket for example, a customer will scan the shelves looking for one color that may be exclusive to a brand, of perhaps a peculiar shaped bottle. Your packaging adds to your buyer’s experience. The theory is proven, so why can’t this be something your brand listens to and replicates?

Tell your story through packaging

Without packaging, you have no product. Your product could work wonders, but if you don’t have the right eye-catching packaging, no one will know what it is, what it does and which company is providing it. Quite obviously, in a competition between the two, the product is the most important to a consumer, but without its packaging, it can’t be sold. New products come and go, but one thing that doesn’t change is the importance of its packaging and how it can influence which products your customers go for.