Packaging is an important part of the marketing mix – and sometimes it can make the difference to a sale.
For example, when I buy wine, not very often, of course, just for taking to parties etc you understand…I am swayed by the packaging. If it looks old and stuffy it’s not for me but if it’s got a funky little frog on it or a Mediterranean look to it, it’s in my hand being swept off to the till.
Shallow I know, but that’s how I choose wine!
I have recently been visiting a skin clinic, having been introduced to them earlier in the year for a feature I was involved with for a national newspaper. Back in July I was working with Fabulous Magazine, part of The Sun with a journalist there – for her feature on skin damage caused by a two-week holiday in the sun.
I had my face scanned before and after I went at a clinic in King’s Hill (Illuminate if you’d like to know…) and the feature was written all about the skin damage done in just two weeks, even though I always used factor 50 on my face!
You can read it here if you’d like to.
During the feature I had the chance to speak with the clinicians about skincare and being just a few months now off of 40 (how did that happen?!) I’m interested in preservation!
I had a lovely appointment with them, an LED treatment (fabulous!) and I bought some skincare too – one pot looked very lovely, exactly as you’d expect.
But the other looks like Canesten!
How embarrassing – and a total faux pas for the company that manufactures it.
The reason it looks like that is because it’s prescribed (and can be by this clinic because they have a Dr there) so it looks like a prescription medicine.
But, this company should have a packaging that is suitable for use in high end clinics such as this one, so that people aren’t embarrassed by their face cream looking like thrush cream!
I certainly won’t be parading it around – but I would the other one because it looks very nice!
If this packaging looked much more in tune with posh skincare, I’d definitely have been happier – but as it stands, it’s at home and it’s staying there! I’ll tell my friends about it but they’re not seeing it!
My point is, if your product or service is marketed to different audiences, you need to think about how it’s done.
Do you need to change the packaging, marketing, messages, branding even – loads of well-known products in the UK look totally different if you buy them elsewhere in the world!
