Flexible packaging has become a more standard form of packaging, and in the appropriate application offers a myriad of advantages and applications to the consumer. However, it also poses real and recognizable challenges in the retail environment that you should carefully consider and incorporate into your creative mandate before you embark on a packaging solution. Whether issues of convenience, sustainability, storage or end use, flexible packaging has to deliver the same degree of shelf presence and impact as conventional packaging, not only in the surface design you create for the package but also in considering how it exists and works on shelf.
This was sharply brought home to me as I was looking for a packaged mix recently. Coming across what appeared to be the sauce/mix area off the store, I couldn’t help but be stunned by the visual disasters present on shelf. As I looked at the melee, my mind kept screaming that the most important thing packaging does is to visually connect with consumers quickly and easily as they move through the store. That ability to connect and engage has to be instantaneous, and it needs to be so riveting that consumers no longer “see” competitive products.