Assessing the Strength of Your Brand Package

Click here or the image below to take the Brand Packaging quiz.

A brand’s package must quickly convey the brand’s personality, promise, unique position and look, preferably in the few seconds it takes a customer to scan a shelf. Of all the different touch points for telling the brand story, the package is the most engaging because it can hit all the senses and draw in the customer. The package is the ultimate test of a brand’s survivability and sustainability.

The brand package should clearly communicate and connect with your core market. More than simply capturing a customer’s attention, a package must engage their emotions by contributing to an authentic, meaningful and memorable brand story to create sustaining power. To achieve this, brands need to focus on customer psychographics rather than their demographics to know why customers buy, and to learn their values and attitudes. They need to get to the emotions and rationalizations behind why people purchase rather than what population group they represent. The package needs to speak to their lifestyle, even help solidify the mindset they use to judge the category. A package is merely a commodity if it doesn’t create a memorable experience with the customer.

Put your package to the test
So how do you know if your packaging is properly representing your brand strategy and fully connecting with your customer? As customers weigh their choices, it ultimately comes down to being able to tell a compelling brand story through packaging and presentation. Once engaged, customers will find every reason to make that brand part of their lifestyle.

While we’re drinking our morning lattes, our friends across the pond are already sipping their afternoon espressos. And we’re evolving our business to harness those 9 hours for your brand. But really, it’s about more than just time…

Brand Engine has joined forces with CB’a Brand Ignition, the first U.S. office of CB’a Design Solutions—a strategic agency with 300 employees and 9 offices in Europe and the Middle East. Together, we’ve created a cross-cultural partnership offering global perspectives, creative resources on two continents, innovative practices from around the world, and access to resources and trends data to give your brand an added boost.

Is your brand loved? Is your brand authentic? The first question is usually harder to answer. The latter is often overlooked. Both are important for a sustainable brand.

Starting with love, Brand Love gives you the ability to say “I’m sorry,” and those customers that really love your brand will continue to stay with you. Denise McCluggage, in a recent column for Autoweek (I’ve been a subscriber for 25+ years now), write beautiful prose on the topic of Brand Love in Love and Recalls. Please read the full story. The short is to recall the car in your past that you most loved and no longer drive, or own. Then after a brief pause, remember why you don’t drive that car anymore. Do you still have a smile on your face, or find yourself holding back a laugh? I’m going to go out on a limb and answer “Yes” for you. You still love that car. Mine was a 1972 Lotus Elan +2 S130. I loved that car. Even though I had to get my nails dirty on weekends to get it drivable for the next week. Or that it had no A/C and I would be sweltering in the Summer on drives from Berkeley to Fresno to visit friends. Reliable? Never. Fun? Absolutely! I loved that car.

In the same issue of Autoweek, K.C. Crain, in his column Zero to Sixty,  gives a lesson on Brand Authenticity in the guise of NASCAR’s Car of Tomorrow. In the worst case of what my wife says when I show her a new car on the road, – “It looks like a Ford Taurus.” (And one from 10 years ago to boot!) – all the cars look the same. Ford Fusion, Chevy Impala, Dodge Charger and Toyota Camry. No authenticity at the race track. How do you expect your customer to recognize your product on the street when what they see on the track has no resemeblance at all. A Ford Taurus indeed. And to complete the masquarade, the engines are completely outdated. They run with carburetors. Which is fine until you realize that the car you drive today uses fuel injection. And in the case of Toyota, they run an engine in NASCAR never built for production cars. How authentic is that?

Ah, the Ides of March and it is a great day to be in Sausalito. My first official ride on the MV Agusta today. Crisp, clear unflitered air under a bright full body yellow sun set against an expansive blue sky. And why am I indoors writing this post?! It’s been a while since my last post and today seemed like the best day to make my return.

Much has happened in the branding and design world over the last few months and with Brand Engine as well. Come back often over the next few weeks as I tell you more about some of the exciting changes happening at Brand Engine and share more of my personal insights and perspectives on branding and design. For now, I’ll leave you with one question to ponder: Does your brand and packaging have Spark?

Will Burke has been invited to judge next year’s first annual The Dieline Awards, a worldwide design competition recognizing the best in package design. Launched by thedieline.com, the world’s leading package design Web site, the competition will be held in conjunction with the 2010 FUSE Conference, taking place in Chicago on April 14^th, 2010.

30 winners across 10 different categories will be awarded a prestigious Dieline Award, with one Best of Show winner. Will is one of only ten industry experts on the judging panel.

Click here for more information on the competition.

Will Burke was recently asked by thedieline.com to contribute to their feature series, ‘Top Packaging Advice from the Pros’. The series, targeted to brand owners that want to rebrand their product or students looking to enter the package design profession, offers advice from top designers in the fields of branding and package design.

Will’s article, ‘How to Make Your Creative Energy Work for You’,  offers tips to develop skills that support the design process, guide your creativity and create excellent results.

To read the article, click here.

Brand Engine was recently added to dexinger.com’s directory for Logo and Branding Design. Click here to see our listing.

Will Burke was recently featured in San Francisco Business Times Entrepreneur Profile.

To read the article, click here.