How To Build Aspiration with Packaging

The Relationship Between Aspiration and Packaging

Your brand’s Aspiration is the degree to which people feel you have something special to offer. It’s about desirability. The outer look and feel and the packaging experience can drive a sense of desirability for your brand. This can be done in multiple ways, from the more obvious to the more subtle. 

When using Packaging to drive your brand’s Aspiration, it’s critical you approach it from all angles, big and small. Consider these things: 

1. Getting people to notice it, from far away:  Consider how your brand looks at shelf or on-line, but then take a step back. When looking at your brand’s packaging versus all the other brands out there in your space, is there something about yours which separates it from the pack? Is there something about it which makes it feel more special? Is there something which draws people towards it just because of the way it looks? Being able to pull people in at a glance is key to improving the desirability of your product. 

2. When people get their hands on it, delight them:  Small optimisations in your product can provide a surprise and delight moment for your users which make your product feel clever. Giving them something that they hadn’t expected makes it a special, and memorable, experience. The way your product opens and closes, the textures you use, the sound your product makes - these can all drive its Aspiration. It isn’t just about the visual look of your product from afar, it’s the fuller experience of your product across the senses which you must consider. 

3. Run the in-home shelf test:  A good indication you have an aspirational product is to run a trick called the in-home shelf test. Is your brand’s packaging something people would keep out on their shelf? Would they put it in their living room, and be proud to have it on display? Would they save it and re-use it? If yes, you’ve got a good thing going in terms of your brand’s aspirational packaging. If not, think about what might drive your customers to want to show off the brand.

What should you do next?

• Consider the multi-sensorial approach that your packaging has to offer.  It isn’t just about the look of your product, it’s about the full sensorial experience which creates something truly special that no other brand can do.
• Explore your brand’s packaging beyond its look and venture into its feel and its sound. Discover what hidden surprise and delight moments you can bake into your packaging to make the experience all that more clever. 
• Sense check whether your product is something people would be proud to display out in the open – if not, what could you do to make it so? 

How to determine if it’s working.

• Aspiration does not come immediately, especially when elements driving the aspiration come with product usage experiences. You’ll see a gradual shift in your brand’s Aspiration when changes are made over time. They will come first due to the façade of your product and then as more people experience it, the more subtle, special elements will continue to further your brand’s Aspiration amongst your users.
• Keep an eye on how many people photograph your product on social media. The more people include it in things like lifestyle image shots or flatlays on Instagram, the more Aspirational people are feeling your brand is. 
  
  
  Guidance from:
  Michael Coden | Head of Marketing, ProQuo AI
  
  Michael has spent 10 years developing and building brands across the US, Europe and Australasia for global companies.