You’d think that when it comes to sports and outdoor merchandise, packaging would pack a punch. But we’re just not feeling it, and we can’t even bear to look out at the sea of wimpy, tired-looking packaging examples trying to drown consumers with feature and benefit claims. So much packaging to refresh, so little time to get it done before the products they contain — and their brands — fail.
Rather than pointing to failures, we’d rather focus on packaging that’s gone from tired to inspired, hoping that brand managers might reconsider their own packaged products and take them from bland to grand. A caveat: Adopting the latest graphic design ideas and pretty imagery might give packaging a facelift, but we know that’s only skin deep. Refreshing a packaging system is about more than proving one’s design chops.