When I was a fresh and foolish first-year art student, I though design was so subjective. How could I possibly please my teachers and get good critiques from classmates when we all had different styles? Then, I matured in knowledge. Yes, design will always be subjective (See such things as the NYC Garbage cubes: You’ll either love or hate them.), but I learned a basic truth — it is much more about creating a solution than a pretty picture.
Brand owners, where does the production of your product’s packaging fall on that learning scale? Have you been tempted to ask for a design similar to a competitor’s (or whatever company is most in the news at the time), because its brand seems to sell a lot? That solution is its own: It won’t work for your brand, though there’s nothing wrong with admiring and wanting certain style characteristics, of course.