What is the Value of a Custom Packaging Design?

Why do we concern ourselves with making things look unique on shelf at the point of sale?  Wouldn’t it just be simpler to make a new bottle design which is the easiest and most functional to manufacture for our blow-molding machines?  Why do we need to make a bottle which is different than someone else’s bottle shape?  Why is the package design so important to you and to our customers?

Well, did you ever think about how lucky we are in that we are able to have so many choices for everything that we purchase?  It doesn’t matter what category of product you are looking at, whether you’re shopping online or in-person at the store.  The choices are endless and sometimes it can be very confusing because there are so many options to choose from within every product offering.

In a typical grocery store, there might be dozens of varieties in one category for a particular item you were needing to purchase.  It can be downright confusing and time consuming to look at every label of every product on the shelf.  What makes you pick up something and read the label?  Is it the color or the shape?  Maybe it’s the brand you always purchased in the past?  Could it be the lower cost of the product which drives your impulse to put that package in your cart?  The reasons may be endless, but one thing is for sure – there is a lot of visual clutter on the shelf when we go shopping.  Sometimes it may even seem to appear as a blur because there is a lot to decipher when choosing products on shelf. 

Did you know that the average western consumer is exposed to something like 3,000 brand images in a single day?  That may be hard to believe, but just think about how many advertisements we see just by driving down the road.  What about the commercials we are exposed to when we watch television.  How about all of those emails we get in our inboxes from companies wanting us to buy their products.  Packaging is no different in that it has its own mini billboard of sorts advertising what’s inside its package hoping that we pick it pick it up to investigate.  That’s half the battle already with packaging design, in that if one picks up the package out of curiosity, it’s one step closer to going into our grocery basket.

If you’re like most people, the majority of the items you place in your cart end up being impulse purchases. We are attracted to things which stand out on the shelf, things which trigger our curiosity.  It could be something that attracted you, like that new sparkly label or unique ergonomics for pour-ability.  Maybe it was the bright color of the bottle, or the larger font size on the label.  Packaging design is an art form in itself in how creativity is used in the development of new shapes for consumers to help with brand differentiation and the point of sale. 

At Graham, we know how to manufacture blow-molded rigid plastic packaging.  We should because we’ve been doing it now for over 50 years utilizing technology that we invented ourselves.  In addition, we know custom packaging and what it means to create a new and unique package for our customers.  As bottle developers, we are familiar with bringing clarity amongst the clutter at the point of purchase when it comes to creating unique patentable designs for our customers.

Success with custom bottle design is first achieved by understanding the history of shape and form throughout history.  We look to antiquities as well as modern craft to help us invent shapes for the future.  We combine elements from the past and combine them with new ideas in the present to create unique shapes for our customers to own which helps to represent their brands.  We create custom bottles which never existed before to help our customers be successful.  Our unique bottle designs stand out on shelf because we know how to craft new and custom bottle shapes with artistic flair combined with manufacturing know-how.  Custom packaging design is in our DNA and throughout our history it has proven to be a very valuable asset for our customer’s success and differentiates Graham from our competition.  In the end, the value of a custom packaging design is priceless.