Analyzing Packaging Alignment to Brand Strategy

When a customer comes to see us about wrapping their product, I am always curious about the alignment of their packaging to the brand strategy.  This article on Kind snack bars caught my eye because of the things that made sense about the product packaging.

Its name Kind is aligned with its sense of social responsibility. Its product is aligned with its packaging and the consumer likes the the contents of the package. What the buyer is consuming is most important.  Social purpose is secondary and does not trump personal value. The product must stand on its own merits.

The manufacturer of Kind bars has taken it a step further.  Rather than list the contents of the package, it gives you a visual clue of the contents by using clear film to reveal some of the product, while leaving some of the packaging for promotion. This form of packaging tells you the condition of the contents, not simply a list of what they are. This allows the product to sell itself.

Management also has learned its priorities the hard way. The founder’s previous company spent too much advertising on its social mission and failed to connect consumers with the personal utility of its products. With Kind snack bars, the value of the product, the visibility of the product in its packaging, and the positioning of the social mission are in alignment.

Most of the time, I look at packaging form the manufacturer’s standpoint : product protection, product life expectancy, name recognition, weight and expense of packaging.  As a consumer, I know that the product uses attractive ingredients, because I see them. When I read their label to see how they are different from the others on the shelf, I learn about their secondary mission: random acts of kindness. In today’s challenging world, that seems very appealing.

Ordering of priorities

• useful product with clearly delineated value
• supported with focused advertising
• product visually supports its reputation
• social mission supports the product’s value and vice versa: its name says it all.

It comes as no surprise to discover that Kind doubled its revenue in 2012. Hopefully next year they are a customer of ours, because we like companies that get it right.

Note: Package Machinery has no relationship to the manufacturer of Kind Snack bars, although the author of this blog has been known to eat the almond and apricot bars and probably has one buried in her pocketbook.