Will your packaging perform on the shelf? How to test and optimize pack design before you launch

Brand and packaging are intricately connected. To start, here are some packaging and performance facts: 

• It makes a one-second impression 

• Competition is fierce 

• Packaging influences perception

• Testing design lowers risk

“Most Americans agree that the design of a product’s packaging (72%) and the materials used to package a product (67%) often influence their purchase decisions when selecting which products to buy.” - Ipsos

How products are packaged matters. Store shelves are crowded and shoppers are in a hurry. So your product has to make an impression and fast. 

Packaging tells a story, but it’s subconscious. Shoppers don’t usually look at a shampoo bottle long enough to think, “This brand cares about me, I can tell by the images and colors on this package. They’ve done all the research and testing necessary to create a safe and healthy product.” 

Even small design missteps can confuse consumers or get lost in a crowded aisle. Packaging materials, colors and design elements such as font choice, text size and imagery are all critical for not only making it clear what your product is, but also providing a brand experience and standing out among competitors. 

In this post, I’ll discuss how to test and optimize pack design based on what real people see, understand and act on. 

“It’s not just about looking good but about leaving an impression that says, ‘This brand cares.’ In a world full of options, that feeling can make all the difference.”

- Joe Enobong, CEO, Parcels Mart Solutions Limited

We don’t know if our pack will stand out against competitors

The most beautiful design in the world won’t matter at all if no one notices it. Your design team puts in effort to create gorgeous packaging that gives shoppers a brand experience, indicates the quality of your product and makes it clear what it’s for. 

But people don’t notice it. 

It blends in with all of the other products on the shelf — or those in the endless scroll. Your product is one of dozens of others. Why is it more likely to catch a busy shopper’s eye than the one beside, above or below it? 

Here are a few of the kinds of elements brands should embrace and avoid in order to be both noticed and remembered: 

Getting the pack just right requires careful balance between clarity and information. You need to impart what the product is, who it’s intended for, the brand story and maybe even how to open the package while avoiding clutter, confusion and exaggeration. And you need to do all of that in a way that doesn’t look like what your competitors are doing. 

One of the ways you can reduce risk around packaging is by testing your designs in different ways. Consider testing for in addition to whether it resonates with consumers:

• Durability and protective capability

• Compatibility between the product and the packaging

• Performance in different environments — can it withstand heat, humidity or having other products stacked on top of it? 

• Regulatory and labeling compliance

Along with testing different aspects of your pack, you should follow specific procedures. For example, it’s always a good idea to decide the goals and criteria of the testing before beginning. Once the goals are clear, you should choose the methods and equipment to carry out the testing. 

After the tests have been conducted and the data collected, you’ll need to analyze the results, then adjust as needed. Package testing means less loss during transport, a better customer experience, higher customer satisfaction, and ultimately, improved brand image. 

💡Zappi in action 

Zappi allows you to use eye-tracking heatmaps and behavioral benchmarks to assess shelf-standout and visual salience before you invest in a new design.

You can learn how well your product stands out on the shelf before making the investment in printing new packaging, potentially saving significantly. Our advanced tools, like heatmapping and behavioral benchmarks let you know whether shoppers are likely to notice your product on a crowded shelf. 

We’re not sure consumers understand what the product actually is

If people don’t understand what’s inside the package, they’re not going to buy the product. Often, design choices like fonts, claims or even product names make sense internally but confuse buyers. 

The founder of Mom’s Official Objective, or M.O.O., Lydia Simmons, launched the brand in 2018 with a goal of making maternal health and wellness more accessible for moms at every stage. The company sells nutritional and hormonal products. The original branding for these products was marble and white packaging with gold lettering. 

“After three years,” Simmons told Forbes, “we came to learn through surveys and reviews that the metallic gold represented luxury and [seemed] too expensive to many of our customers. Therefore, our efforts to provide the nutritional building blocks for moms were being impeded by our branding.” 

Think of the difference in how vitamins are packaged and how high-end cosmetics are packaged. One very noticeable difference is that the vitamins have quite a lot more information on the label compared to the cosmetics. The cosmetics pack is sleek and upscale. The vitamins packaging is utilitarian and looks medicinal, thanks in part to the brown bottle and the word “health” appearing twice. 

Shoppers skim packaging in seconds, making clarity essential. 

💡 Zappi in action

Zappi allows you to test packaging comprehension and messaging to make sure your product’s core value is front and center. 

This helps you clarify whether shoppers understand what your product is, whether they will remember it and what kind of emotional response it elicits. Everything you need to know before you bring it to market.

We need to compare multiple designs and get fast feedback

A lot of times, final packaging design decisions stall out due to stakeholder or internal decision makers. But creative reviews aren’t a substitute for shopper reactions.

So while having multiple pack options to choose from isn't a bad thing, at the end of the day, the design that’s declared the “winner” should be based on consumer feedback. After all, they’re the ones you’re creating your packaging for. 

In order to whittle down your designs, there are several key performance indicators you should be looking at from your consumers: 

• Overall appeal: How appealing does your target consumer find the design? What do they like about it?  

• Influence on purchase: After seeing the packaging, does it make them more likely to purchase the product? What factors influence this?  

• Distinctiveness: How different is this design compared to similar products? Does it stand out more or less? 

• Advantage: Does this design give the product a greater advantage for purchase or to stand out on the shelf? Is it better than what else is on the market? 

💡 Zappi in action

Zappi allows you to review all of the above KPIs from your target consumer as well as run side-by-side comparisons with your target audience and score each design across these performance metrics. Ultimately allowing you to identify the best designs early on (within hours) and get a holistic assessment of all aspects that drive in-market success of your packaging.

We’re redesigning but don’t want to lose brand recognition

A fresh look can backfire if loyal customers don’t recognize it, and that can translate to millions of dollars in lost sales. In 2009 orange juice brand Tropicana lost $30 million in sales due to a failed rebrand. Here’s what happened. 

Tropicana’s containers featured a beautiful, perfectly ripe orange, with a red and white straw sticking out of it. The new brand was more minimalist, with a plain white design and a glass of orange juice. Busy shoppers scanned the shelves for their favorite juice, but didn’t recognize the new design. Sales dropped by 20% in one month.  

Packaging changes should evolve, not confuse. Coca-Cola provides a clear example of evolution in the design of their iconic bottles. From 1916 through today, the shape of the bottle has changed but remained similar enough to be recognizable, and the logo remained very much the same. Today, Coca-Cola packaging is recognizable anywhere in the world. 

We will never know if Tropicana could have avoided their packaging debacle or not, just as we can’t know if a complete redesign would have benefitted Coca-Cola at any point in their long history because the tools available to accurately test multiple designs and get fast feedback are quite new. Modern brands have an edge when it comes to testing. 

💡 Zappi in action

Zappi’s pack research solution helps you measure recognition, trust and recall to ensure your new design builds on past equity — not replace it. 

You’re even able to evaluate your pack in context of other competitive packages, get an on-shelf read on spontaneous and aided brand recall and purchase likelihood of yours and competitive products so you know exactly how your consumer feels about your new packaging.

Whether your product is on a digital or physical shelf, how it’s packaged presents opportunities and challenges. Your brand can create an experience with the pack when done right, but can also frustrate and even enrage consumers when not. To be memorable, err on the side of simplicity using clear design elements, offer instructions, and make it clear what your product is. To lower risk, test your pack designs first with Zappi. 

Our tools allow you to understand which of your pack ideas are best and where to optimize based on real consumer feedback, offering key metrics such as in-context likelihood of purchase, distinctiveness, brand fit and more.