3 Consideration to Ensure Your Brand and Packaging Align
Organizations spend time and money on clear, cohesive branding that reaches and connects with their target audience. In this article, Packaging Strategies talks about the connection between packaging innovations and brand image, an often overlooked and underestimated one. The reality is that every channel that your end user (or their end user) comes into contact with—websites, marketing materials, social media, a plethora of advertising channels—all factor into the company’s branding messaging.
But what about their packaging?
While you probably think deeply and considerately about the products you sell, you might overlook the importance of what it arrives in. It’s time to change this mindset and embrace that the packaging itself can lend to the branding story. As long it’s done right.
It’s time to use your bulk packaging to support your brand. 
The thing is, even if you aren’t focusing on your packaging as part of your branding, it’s still communicating to your customers. And the story may not be good.
What story is your bulk packaging telling? Is your packaging aligned with your brand? Here are 3 things to consider to ensure your packaging is supporting your brand.
- Are you taking advantage of printability?
The printing on your packaging is a powerful way to reinforce your branding. Your logo, tagline, and your website address are all important pieces of information that are easily shareable on your packaging material. These are all visual reminders to your customer that you stand behind the product inside and want to continue the relationship with them. It also familiarizes your client with your branding in a deeper sense than visiting your website. If you haven’t looked into printable packaging possibilities, you could be missing an exciting branding opportunity.
The Meta® Pail Solution
Who doesn’t want increased product awareness? Each truckload of poorly labeled pails represents missed opportunities. Sales & marketing wants more than just a drab label slapped on the top or side of the plastic buckets—they wonder how to achieve more professional marketing and positive brand awareness on packaging.
Meta Pail is a multi-faced, 8-sided container that offers unique branding opportunity to increase and reinforce brand awareness. End users will benefit from:
- Private label opportunities
- Marketing product with enhanced exposure
- Optimized retail shelf visibility, providing the opportunity to attract new customers
- Have you re-imagined your packaging’s functionality?
It’s irritating to deal with packaging that is difficult to open, lacks protection for the product, or is a weird and unruly size. We recently wrote about this in a blog that discusses Amazon’s Frustration-Free Packaging program. Heavy packaging is another negative. Think about how you want your brand to be perceived. Clunky, inaccessible, and broken are probably adjectives that are nowhere on the list!
The key is to find sleek, lightweight packaging that is still sturdy, so it protects the product inside. Achieving this gives your customer what they want and increases their satisfaction about the interaction with your company.
The Meta Pail Solution
Customers have their share of long days, complete with the ergonomic challenges of opening and closing containers, scooping product, and hoisting containers of bulk product. The smallest gain in task efficiency represents an appreciable improvement: lighter bulk containers, easier opening lids than those of 5-gallon pails that never come off without a fight, and more sanitary assurances for re-lidding. Storage and disposal present issues—either stacked too high and cumbersome to get to, or in the way until recycling day. Customers would rather spend energy on more important business concerns, like growth.
As well, Meta Pail is recyclable and—true to its flexible packaging characteristics—disposes easily, with its collapsible plastic and corrugated components. It makes work very efficient and keeps products safe:
- Unique tamper-evident lidding film—ideal for foods and condiments
- No separate lid to track or pick up contaminants
- Easy open, easy close with large peel-reseal lidding structure—hybrid peel option with peel-reseal and one-pull features for ease of disposal
- One-peel lidding option for one-time use products
- Lighter weight than a 5-gallon plastic pail—easy handling
- Are you using sustainable products in your bulk packaging?
Sustainability and going green aren’t just buzzwords—they are earnest initiatives that responsible companies and consumers pursue in efforts to become better stewards of the environment and planet. Consumers continuously look to do business with organizations that are Earth-friendly and proactively reduce waste. You may have already embraced such a stance in your branding or might not have committed to it yet. Either way, using sustainable, recyclable products is a smart branding play, as well as the action of a caring corporate citizen.
You can accomplish this by purchasing packaging that—because of manufacturing advances—takes less energy and resources to make. In addition, sturdier materials that are lighter weight create less waste. Finally, choose packaging that is easy to recycle, and make sure as much of it as possible can be recycled. All these decisions add up to bulk packaging that tells a positive story about your brand.
The Meta Pail Solution
Everyone wins when we work collectively toward sustainability goals. When we all pitch in through simple practices and everyday business decisions, we all preserve a more tenable future. Improving your sustainability scorecard will certainly bolster your brand image, but it’s just plain good for your business and the planet.
The sustainable benefits of using Meta Pail flexible packaging include:
- Less disposal volume, easier to recycle: 4 collapsed Smart Pails fit into the space of 1 five-gallon plastic pail
- Reduced impact on climate change (CO2 emissions) by 52% over rigid pails
- 72% less solid waste than rigid pails
- 64% less energy usage than rigid pails
- Recyclable components: HDPE pail and corrugated container
- Ability to collapse or nest for minimized and efficient disposal/recycling—takes up less space in a truck, plant, or dumpster
What does all this mean?
Your branding message doesn’t end with the delivery of a quality product. What the product arrives in tells part of the story, too. Yes, if you decide to make changes to your current packaging, there will be additional costs involved. However, an investment to implement change can’t hinder the trends of printability, functionality, and sustainability and their effects on your business. It’s smart to weigh the cost against the kind of brand you want to create in your buyers’ minds and how instrumental your bulk packaging will be in doing that. In many cases, a positively received brand is well worth the cost.
Disrupting the Packaging Industry
We set out to disrupt the packaging industry with concerted efforts to meet the needs of our customers while also taking care of the planet. CDF Corporation has a long history of innovation in flexible packaging, from accordion inserts to unique IBC liner valves. CDF’s high level of expertise and service ensure a reliable partner for many packaging needs: custom food packaging, chemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, and more. Download our Meta Pail brochure for more details about this innovative packaging system.
