Classic Coke bottle

Behold, a dark horse. Its name is packaging. At least, that’s according to Nielsen, which this week published its annual Breakthrough Innovation Report, grumbling how package design was “one of the least heralded aspects of marketing” in spite of being a “major factor” in the most successful fmcg product launches over the past couple of years.

Nielsen analysed 9,900 product launches across Europe and then picked the 11 biggest hitters, with each having generated at least €7.5m in the first year of sales (€5m for Eastern Europe) and maintained at least 90% in the second year.

When analysing the success of the SKUs, packaging design emerged as the key theme – leading report co-author Ben Schubert to describe it as “the dark horse of the marketing world”. Which is an odd turn of phrase. The importance of a format’s look and feel has for a long time been front of mind for suppliers, brands, designers and marketers. It’s not a secret.

To be fair to Schubert, he meant – and, indeed, said – pack design was still often undervalued. This is partly because a well put together box or bottle does its job without ceremony. It sells a product to us, the consumers, without us realising we’re being, in essence, manipulated by an inanimate object.

Well-designed packs are effective: they drive sales forcefully by being clear about what they contain and what the product does. Those were the sort selected by Nielsen for making plenty of coin (and included Whiskas dry catfood from the UK).

However, fewer designs are genuinely… well, great. ‘Great’ is hard to pin down and opinions as to the definition will vary wildly – but most would agree great pack design means a strong aesthetic and not just something that sells.

Great design moves us. It’s evocative and subtle in its manipulations. And recognisable, by doing a lot with a little: bunching a name, a colour and typography into a wallop. Take, for example, the glass Coke bottle. It’s simple and it’s iconic, connecting with hundreds of millions of people. How many grocery brands can truly say that of their pack designs? 

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