A Message From Neenah Packaging
Sponsor of GDUSA’s American Package Design Awards
Packaging has always been a utilitarian necessity. For years its principal purpose — labeling and protecting contents for distribution — took precedence over its marketing potential. Today, the package has become an essential tool to convey a product’s image. Packaging helps to communicate the product’s intrinsic value, shape consumer perception, and forge the path to converting casual buyers into lifelong customers.
Consumers interact with packaging more than any other form of communication design, whether the package sits on a shelf at a brick-and-mortar store or on an ecommerce site. In the store, customers want to see and touch and experience the product at the point of sale. Online, consumers enjoy interactive 360-degree views that allow them to “unwrap” the product for closer views. If a customer likes a package and/or finds it useful, they often keep it. Sometimes for years.
In cosmetics and fragrances, the primary package coalesces functionality and style to present a brand image. Secondary packaging protects and, due to its visibility on shelf, becomes the brand’s most vital, silent salesperson. The choice of the materials — color, texture, finish and design — combined with packaging structure, integrate to help tell a brand story that is ultimately at the heart of customer engagement.
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| The Marie Todd luxury home fragrance collection uses a combination of textures on its packaging to define the layers of its scents. Embossing, foil stamping and CLASSIC® Linen Box Wrap Papers create a package as elegant and sensuous as the product. |
The allure of spirits packaging plays an outsized role in consumer appeal. Consumers identify strongly with their favorite spirit brands. Getting them to sample new ones is a marketing challenge. Spirits packaging helps define the quality of the beverages and the kinds of people who enjoy them. Fine spirits have historically conjured up sophisticated images of great food, great times, elegance, and class. The most successful brand stories integrate design and paper choice to speak about heritage, craft technique, and highly individualized customer profiles.
NEENAH Packaging is honored to once again celebrate the power of packaging, and the creators of the wonderful work showcased in this growing competition. Visit www.neenahpackaging.com for inspiration, information, and to order samples.
In a more specialized premium category, craft beer labels often feature an innovative mix of paper, colors, textures, and design that speak to the unique brand character of these brewers. As small brewers lead with smarter branding and packaging, big brewers are feeling the pressure to up the ante.
Today, NEENAH Packaging is wholly focused on helping you create premium packaging and labels for cosmetics and fragrances, beer, wine, and spirits, and all types of consumer products, providing designers and brand managers with more paper and options that did not exist five years ago. The opportunities for customization are endless.
The packaging enhances the brand experience, and it must communicate the value and promise of the brand. Luxury brands rely on a diversified mix of marketing materials to position their brand. Websites, mobile devices, and apps are essential but the tactile, tangible nature of paper and packaging creates a unique connection between brand and buyer. Nowhere is this more evident than in premium package design, a high-touch tool that brand marketers utilize to win hearts and minds and inspire enduring brand loyalty.
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| A custom dyed NEENAH® Folding Board bring the richness of the flavor and the luxurious color of Chambord to the forefront with strong packaging cues. | For the handcrafted Wrangletown Hard Cider, hand lettering, debossing and a deckle edge on tactile ESTATE LABEL® add an extra level of authenticity to a label that pays homage to local history. |