In a crowded market, it can be hard for customers to find your products.
You may have a superb product, but if there are many other similar offerings all clamouring for attention, it may get lost amongst the noise. What’s needed is a way to differentiate your product from the rest and set it up on a higher level – then you can stand out on a value basis, rather than having to compete on cost or availability. Design can help give your product genuine differentiation and visibility in the market.
Simon James knew how important strong branding and intelligent packaging would be when he set about establishing his new organic juice business. He was convinced there was a market for his quality blends of fruit and vegetable juices but knew there were those who would shy away from anything that wasn’t pure fruit, and others who associated ‘organic’ with welly-boots and dirty carrots. If his juices were going to hold their own against established brands with mass distribution agreements they were going to need to stand out, be a credible bet for distributors and tell their story in an instant. Design was the key.
Specialist packaging and brand consultancy Tin Horse agreed to work with Simon from the earliest stage, taking a share in the business in lieu of fees thanks to a combination of Simon’s enthusiasm and a clear business opportunity. Making a virtue of the unusual ingredients used in some of the juices, the Twisted brand was born, and with it a compelling series of supporting illustrations from Paul Davis. These would adorn the bottles of juice, and together with the new Twisted logo would give a striking visual first impression of a cool and interesting product: ‘Funky Organic Goodness!’ as Simon puts it.
Tin Horse was also able to offer significant support on packaging design and production. ‘Expensive new tooling was out, but, building on an existing relationship, we were able to persuade a large packaging manufacturer that it had a ‘gap’ in its ranges of standard bottle packs: a 250ml, multi-layer bottle to complement an existing PET mono-layer range,’ explains Martin Bunce from Tin Horse.
‘This offered the perfect combination of drink size and shelf life: any bigger and the quality ingredients would push the unit price up too much.’
The resulting packaging makes Twisted a far more attractive prospect for investors and distributors, and should enable Simon’s creative juices to reach the mass market.
If you want to achieve standout for your product, a good start is to identify what it is that makes it (even slightly) better or different from the competition – and then emphasise that feature to the maximum. This could be in the design of your product, by drawing attention to it with colour, material or relative size. You could also use the latest packaging techniques and materials to highlight aspects of your product. Consult a design and branding agency for more help. Remember, in today’s crowded markets, your motto has to be: ‘Differentiate or die!’