Packaging in Pakistan’s FMCG sector is more than just aesthetics. It’s a crucial marketing tool that can significantly impact a product’s visibility and sales. From ensuring packaging stands out on crowded shelves to enhancing the overall brand experience. Effective design requires meticulous attention to detail and a deep understanding of consumer psychology.
If you are a married man, you will have definitely experienced the meticulous care a woman takes to wrap a gift. She carefully selects the wrapping paper, the card, the ribbon. And makes sure that the wrapping is done in as neat a way as possible.
You do not have to be a contestant on Masterchef. To dread dishing up your creation in front of Gordon Ramsay to know how important presentation is. Coming back to the housewife or wife as a hostess. She would rather die than serve up dinner to a guest(s) in a less-than-perfect casserole or dish. It would just be lazy and impolite and ultimately reflect badly on her.
That kind of attention to detail may seem present in our market for the packaging of FMCG products or other products. But actually, the brands and agencies working in this space are not in reality paying attention to effective details.
My first hands-on experience with packaging came in 2002, during my internship at JWT, where I got a practical look at how packaging design is conceptualised, developed, and aligned with brand strategy.
The account group I was part of was servicing National Foods, among other clients such as Rafhan Best Foods and Knorr.
In the office, I watched as Atif Noman, the Account Executive, proofread and check the designs for the National Foods masala packs.
The design went through more than a few changes and alterations. At times, to me, it seemed a sort of OCD. Would customers actually check the font and the wording? The colour gradient of the pack? At times, I think it was just time being expended.
My account director had thrown me in the deep end. Just how Imran Khan gave both a young Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis a baptism of fire by asking them to bowl the opening overs in ODIs.
After getting some clarification, I started off on my project. The stated objective was to check whether the client’s products. The Knorr cubes and noodles were getting places of prominence in stores.
I had to visit a whole range of shops, ranging from kiryana stores to Local Modern Trade and International Modern Trade. They allotted me two weeks to conduct my survey and compile the findings. Like the knights of King Arthur seeking the Holy Grail, I set out on my quest.
Spending a good time in the market in various areas of the city. Like Mehmoodabad, Nazimabad, Kharadar, Korangi, Shah Faisal, PECHS, Clifton, DHA, and Federal B Area. I got an in-depth exposure to the ground realities.
Visiting different stores showed me the attitude of the shopkeepers and their behaviour. It came as a surprise to me that due to the recently changed colours of the Knorr tomato sauce bottle. I was not able to spot it on the shelf, even when it was literally right in front of me.
The client had opted for dull yellow, green and red colours. While its competitors like Mitchell were using a very visible white and red.
Given the premium on shelf space in stores of all sizes and the need for visibility, packaging played a crucial role, because to be bought, a brand first needs to be seen. And as per my submitted findings, Knorr especially was losing out.
This, for me, was a key lesson. Design in the agency or on the presentation screen should not be approved. Not unless it can stand out and attract in the real and messy retail space.
Creating designs and packaging in an artificial environment is as good as wasting money, time and effort. In Pakistan, packaging is not the science it should be. In his best-selling book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell dedicates an entire chapter to how packaging is practised and executed in the USA.
US marketers and brand custodians know that advertising is not the only way to change the beliefs and behaviours of customers and potential customers. They have experimented and learnt how effective subtle alterations and changes. In a product’s packaging can convey and communicate things like freshness, reliability, trust and any other value the brand wants the viewer to experience.
Just as there is a psychology of colour. The seasoned marketers and the experts in packaging know the psychology of packaging.
The classic launch of Pringles—familiar to every marketing student—highlights how packaging can either reinforce a brand’s communication and positioning or work completely against it.
When the chips brand first hit the market, consumers complained it tasted like tennis balls. It turned out the issue wasn’t the flavour but the packaging—at the time, the only widely recognised product sold in a cylindrical container was, in fact, tennis balls.
So, when people ate the chips, they immediately associated them with tennis balls. The phenomenon at work was something called sensation transference. This is the reason why perfumes come in exotic and fancy bottles. For many brands, you are actually paying the hefty price for the bottle. And because the bottle is so aesthetically pleasing, you are ready to pay, thinking the perfume itself is high quality.
Another area where packaging in Pakistan is lacking when it comes to the food category is in enhancing the brand experience. Packaging should serve not only a functional purpose or aesthetic, but alsoan experiential.
The packaging needs to reflect the brand values and personality in more ways than having the brand colour palette. This requires time and effort and skill. To achieve this, brands can incorporate simple elements like a slogan or a clear message.
If you ever eat at Nando’s, you would have noticed the napkins that have the humorous message of “Now remove all the evidence”. The takeaway packaging of the brand makes you laugh because it says, “Your place or mine”.
Another example is Broadway Pizza, the brand is based on the world-famous theatre area in New York. So to convey that experience, the pizza boxes have the line “Every bite is a performance”.
Innovations in the area of food brand packaging have come and gone. Such as Olper’s Ecolean microwaveable pouches or the iconic Nestle Milkpak triangle.
Added costs, along with handling and storage challenges, have pushed companies back to the drawing board.
While packaging design remains a largely untapped field in Pakistan, it’s only a matter of time before local brands begin paying serious attention to this often-overlooked ‘P’ of the marketing mix.