Formerly known as CONCH. 'wave' is dedicated to our clients, the projects we’ve worked on together and the benefits that smart marketing, branding and advertising deliver.
For many consumer goods, especially FMCG, packaging is king. Huge competition for market share means companies are looking even closer to packaging to deliver uniqueness and consumer appeal.
The appearance of wine in supermarkets since the relaxation of liquor laws 15 years ago has had a major effect on consumer perception of wine. There are literally hundreds of choices you can now make and most supermarkets now have entire isles dedicated to wine. Wine brands do an amazing amount of research studying their target audiences perception of their labelling and are constantly refining the design to maximise appeal. New brands are also looking for opportunities or gaps in the market and these are again identified through thorough research. An example of this is the emergence of the ‘Critter’ wines over the last five years. Lead by brands like Monkey Bay, Yellow Tail and Blue Penguin. These brands are appealing to a ‘new’ audience as wine drinking is becoming more of an everyday beverage.
While investing in appealing packaging is becoming even more important it isn’t an altogether new idea. For Coca Cola, their contour bottle is considered to be almost as important as the secret formula itself. In fact, the bottle’s design, which was patented in 1915, became the first product to be registered as a 3D trademark in 1977, only a small number of consumer packages have since received the same registration.
The concept sprang from the recognition that a completely unique and instantly recognisable bottle would be a major marketing tool. The design brief suggested that the goal should be ‘a Coca-Cola bottle which a person will recognise as a Coca-Cola bottle even if he feels it in the dark’ and that ‘the Coca-Cola bottle should be shaped so that, even if broken, one could tell at a glance what it was.’
The success the original designers achieved in attempting to fulfil this brief is still evident today, as the bottle remains one of the most readily identifiable industrial objects on the planet.
As powerful as it can be, packaging should never be considered in isolation. For Coca-Cola it was about the need to be unique, which came directly out of their overall strategy to enter new markets and gain loyalty. The bottle shape has also gone on to be the basis for much of the ongoing marketing and advertising which supports the fact that for packaging to be successful it needs to deliver on brand strategy and be supported with ongoing media communication.
WAVE has a long history creating specialist strategy driven packaging for leading brands such as AFFCO, Tip Top, Lindauer, Montana, Camshorn, Grove Avocado Oil, and Bird Wines.
For more information about this project contact Cheryl Brown cb@wavedesign.co.nz
