Walking through Whole Foods the other day, there was a group of people standing at the end of an aisle looking at a display of products. Obviously, such behaviour always intrigues. They were looking at a display of bottled water (alas they had dispersed before I was able to get a picture of them). The display is for a brand new to me, called Eternal.
Eternal is an artesian water that is sourced from New Zealand. What had caught the eye of this small group though was the design of the packaging. The label is on the back and is viewed through the bottle of water.
This has a magnifying effect on the logo and supporting copy and, because of the way the light refracts through the water, the typeface appears to shift in shape and size. It looks very cool.
This is a truly artful example of using your in-store assets to capture the attention and imagination of your audience. As we know, packaging is one of the most powerful mediums a brand has, and one the brand is in total control of. Its impact is great both within the retail environment and out, and this example demonstrated really nicely how it can be used to raise awareness of your brand and how to engage shoppers (and the group did walk off with a couple of bottles in their basket, which helps reinforce the point).
So many other brands that sit on a shelf could learn a lesson from this and do more with their packaging to engage the shopper and create a buzz in retail for their brand. So how could you re-think and re-conceive what your packaging does for your brand? How can you use packaging to convey something about the role your brand plays? Does your packaging manifest anything about your brand's beliefs? Or your brand's behaviors? Perhaps, like Eternal, it should.
