The next time you find yourself browsing the aisles of your supermarket, take care to notice how the products around you have been packaged.

Packaging does more than protect the contents of its product – it is a well-known marketing concept to use packaging to entice consumers and to heighten brand awareness.

According to a recent article on Packaging Digest, the packaging of the product contains visual cues which are meant to communicate messages which are associated with the brand’s core values.

Take Woolworths’ food packaging, for example. Woolworths’ ‘good business journey’ is aimed at promoting environmental-friendly products, and its packaging is designed accordingly. The company has cut down on its use of plastic and provides the consumer with as much information as possible on the packaging about the product inside. Although seemingly trivial, these two features are examples of how Woolworths’ packaging communicates the company’s values of being environmentally aware and socially responsible.

See the Rocking the Daisies green tip on getclosure!’s blog for more information on green packaging initiatives.

It is important that a brand uses packaging to its maximum potential in order to distinguish itself from other brands – it has been discovered that shoppers tend to ignore almost two-thirds of packaging on supermarket shelves, according to David Bellm from Packaging Digest. The Eye on Packaging blog mentions that packaging needs to be designed in context. This means that the packaging needs to be designed according to where it is going to be sold, and how it compares to competitor brands on the market. ‘Looking good’ is not the only thing that needs to be taken into consideration.

Consumers need to look beyond the ‘looking good’ factor of packaging to make sure that they are not being misled by the product which they are buying. Organics shampoo is a good example of a product whose packaging could be misleading to consumers. The name of the product and green colour of the packaging communicate that the shampoo is organic. According to an article in Biophile Magazine, its ingredients are definitely not organic. It is important to know that brands can use deception in the appearance of their products in order to entice an unaware consumer.

What do you think? Do you judge a book by its cover, or take some time to consider the contents?