It is now well accepted that virtually all brands, from the utmost recognized to the newly eager, face an unprecedented onslaught of counterfeiting and gray market trading. In emerging countries, this menace is bold and audacious, with outright fakes appearing in the open marketplace. In developed countries, the problem is equally insidious due to online propagation of counterfeit products through e-commerce platforms.

As automation technologies progress, there are more opportunities for machinery to respond directly to input from human operators. This is why a good human-machine interface (HMI) is extremely important.

Packaging has always been a means of communicating a brand’s value proposition — who your product is for and why it’s better and different than anything else on the market today. But in today’s increasingly competitive consumer product landscape, the critical need to stand out is inspiring marketers to push the boundaries of design in new and unexpected ways. Based on what we’re seeing from design projects on our global platform, here are five new trends that will dominate packaging design in 2020 and beyond.

The post-purchase experience is an area that is often neglected in ecommerce. Branded packaging is more costly than using stock shipping boxes. So many ecommerce businesses feel that it’s simply not worth the investment.

Just because millennials and members of Generation Z are close in age, does not necessarily mean they share the same belief systems. For this generation, diversity, purpose, and honesty are more than hashtags. They are virtues these young consumers expect from all brands.

Two packaging industry trends are causing headaches for automated case packing OEMs and their customers. OEMs must advance their design strategies to keep the cost of automation affordable so customers continue to receive optimum ROI.

Even before birth, gender norms are thrust on all of us, from gender reveal parties to pink and blue blankets. Gender has traditionally been treated as a foundational building block of our identities.

It seemed like an exciting product development opportunity. Building material suppliers in cold climates were moving packaging operations outdoors. They needed equipment that could operate in an open shed or shelter to bundle their bricks, blocks and masonry products.