The outbreak of Covid-19 has lowered the pace of the world economy. From global unrest to economic downfall, every country across the world has struggled throughout the year to implement contingency plans. Not just nations, even the common people developed a habit to adhere to safety protocols and have changed their lifestyle.
Consumers didn’t just elevate their hygiene standards but also started to pick packed products and stay away from unpacked products. This strengthened the role of packaging with new trends in our daily lives.
Packaging plays an important role in building a brand’s identity and in our daily life, but with changing times it is doing much more than that. The global pandemic has changed the way consumers engage with products. Online shopping has gained impetus as it limits the physical engagement of several consumers at the store. Packaging ensures the safety of the product and has marked much more important for itself than just an outer covering for the packed ingredients.
Apart from this, customers are also concerned about bio Safety of the Packaging. It has therefore become vital for brands to ensure that their product is packaged in a way that it is absolutely safe for the customers. Thus, brands are coming up with better ways of packaging to cope up with the changing times.
Here are a few packaging trends you can look forward to in 2021.
Ensuring Uncompromised Safety
E-commerce websites are thriving with online purchases. With increase in online orders the demand for high quality packaging has also risen. Be it food, groceries or clothing, the demand for packaging that is multi-layered and that doesn’t allow virus to settle on its surface has increased tremendously. Customers demand packages that are sturdy and can survive the long transit times. Neither should the product be adulterated in any way nor should there be any damage to packaging making a probable way for the virus. This means a design change for brands and a wider scope in customer engagement.
Suitable & Sustainable Packaging
Not just health conscious, customers have also become environment conscious. With awareness about depleting resources, both the brands and the consumers are switching to sustainable products that are easily recyclable or biodegradable. This means brands should now design their packages innovatively, with material which is reusable and should educate their customers about the same. One of the best ways to do this is by using QR codes on the products. The QR code when scanned by the customer should inform them about the methods of recycling or reusing the packaging and the product.
Innovate To Integrate Interaction
Brands are now utilizing the packaging as a means to engage customers with the brand. This new packaging trend is designed to increase the interaction of the customers with the product. Games, contests, rewards, and other fun activities are being used to gamify the customer experience. By asking customers to click and post pictures on social media, to use brand hashtags, and to tag the brand’s social media handle, brands are creating easy promotion techniques. Thus, the packaging is not just limiting its purpose to protection but is promoting sales which got impacted during the pandemic outbreak.
Reward Your Customers
For most brands, a loyalty program requires a customer to have a card swiped which generates points and offers them discounts. However, during COVID-19 times, the need for carrying out every procedure while being contactless has generated. A lot of brands have responded to this by including a QR code for their loyalty programs on their packaging. This simply requires customers to scan the code on receiving their package and their reward points are calculated and saved digitally. This increases customer loyalty and they make frequent purchases. Thus, a simple change in packaging design induces more sales.
Less is Always More
Minimalism is one of the most trending packaging techniques. By using a minimalistic design brands aim to keep their identity simple and chic. An uncluttered and simple design appeals very easily to the customers and helps establish a good brand identity. High contrast elements with earthy tones are common packaging styles today that work brilliantly in favor of the brands.
Packaging designers constantly delve into techniques to make the packaging more convenient. Today Packaging is designed in a way that facilitates consumers in every way – be it convenience of reclosability, storage, reuse or disposing the packaging.
The evolving customer needs more than just a protective layer for their products. Packaging process is important in more ways than we can directly think of and thus it is important that brands keep updating their packaging with changing times. These latest trends are being adopted with successful results in sales and customer satisfaction.
