Before the holiday I attended a trade show for one of our clients, the Private Label Manufacturers Association. They represent the "store brands" industry, and though I was there for different reasons, I spent most of my time thinking about packaging.
One of the presentations I saw was by Daymon Design, who posited that product packaging gives the best return on investment of all media buys. I'm not sure that I was convinced by their supporting data, but it got me thinking about the viability of packaging design for the future. I looked at a number of displays and talked to every exhibitor I could who was involved in design, photography, printing or marketing of packaging.
What I deduced from talking to people was that packaging design seems to be less affected by changes in media than other print forms. Essentially, products will always need to be wrapped in something. But several marketing/design professionals who had been doing it for some time noted that, as commerce has moved to the web, the relative importance of the product presentation has declined, and therefore retailers are putting less thought/resources into the design. The one area that is the exception is food packaging, because supermarkets have had less success than others in successfully selling product via the web, and shelf display is still of primary importance.
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