How Your Flexible Packaging Manufacturers Can Support Your Branding

As a marketing manager, you have worked hard to build your brand, creating a singular and identifiable image for your product.

Part of your planning probably has included a distinctive package, one that is designed to register strongly with your prospects and customers. Wouldn’t it be a shame if your flexible package supplier didn’t carry their part of the bargain?

As you know, package design incorporates sound design, material construction, printing and more in order to communicate to your intended audience. Just as your positioning, pricing, distribution and other marketing elements are not left to chance, neither are the ways in which your product’s end user interacts with your flexible package. Here are four crucial elements of your packaging that must be delivered without compromise as a normal part of your flexible packaging solutions.

1. Color: Think of the unique combinations on a can of Campbell’s soup or the precise yellow of McDonald’s arches on the wrappers. These are reminders of how color contributes to a brand’s identity. In fact, academic studies have shown that as much as 80 percent of a product’s recognition can be attributed to the color. Therefore delivering those colors accurately and consistently is critical.

2. Graphics: Graphic elements on a package comprise not only the color combinations noted above, but the product photography, layout and typography of your flexible packaging. Additional options such as holograms and textured materials can also attract consumers to your package, encouraging them to reach for it and examine it, which in turn is likely to lead them to try your product.

3. Readability of Text: A package’s contrast between its text and its graphics (whether in the background or foreground) is an important factor behind readability. Usually this readability is achieved according to the package producer’s printing capabilities, including the ability to strike the correct balance between the text and the background colors or graphics. Additionally, if a weak contrast of the text occurs, that can be improved by adding a drop shadow or an outline around the characters.

4. Materials: Your packages’ materials are the canvas upon which your carefully constructed design will be placed for display. Therefore, effective package design requires an astute and broad knowledge of the materials’ properties, such as their abilities to receive ink or how the manufacturing method will affect the shape, smoothness and physical attractiveness. The materials themselves, depending on their visual or tactile qualities, may also be part of the overall design. For example, Jenessa Gonzales, the CFO and owner of MicroLine Design, LLC, writes on the company’s website and on LinkedIn, “Research studies have shown that consumers choose products with a shiny foil label over those without as much as 26.7% of the time. (This) confirms that shoppers are attracted to items that catch their eye.” Gonzales also points out that foil stamped packaging can give a product manufacturer a clear advantage in the marketplace, helping to increase sales and have a consistent positive impact on aesthetic appeal, product expectations and brand imagery.

In order to incorporate these features into your flexible packaging, you need to learn the following about your flexible packaging supplier’s production capabilities:

• How proficient is their graphics team in reproducing your design for the package? If any unexpected problems arise from the files you have provided or from any other source, how qualified are they to correct them on your behalf?
• What is the quality of their printing? Can they provide superior resolution and separation?
• Can they match the colors that are central to your branding? More specifically, how many colors can their presses run?
• How good is their photo reproduction? Is the definition crisp, or does the image settle into an indistinct mash?
• In addition to their printing capabilities, what is the range of package materials available? Can this packager provide a unique material (e.g., textured, or foil) to increase your package’s eye appeal to the customer?

The right answers to these questions can lead either to having packages stand out on the shelf or be left behind by uninterested, unmotivated buyers.

Learn more about the many features Fres-co can add to your packages to increase their shelf appeal and make them more attractive to your customers and prospects.

For more than 40 years, Fres-co System USA, Inc. has manufactured high-performance flexible packaging systems and invented dozens of innovative breakthroughs including degassing valves, modified atmosphere technologies, and reclosure systems.

Topics: Flexible Packaging, Package Design

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