We all on some level understand the importance of a packaging design in any product-driven business, especially in a beverage business. As much as a good packaging design can drive your sales up, bad packaging design can do the opposite and harm your brand image in a long-term perspective. Even if the product itself is amazing, bad packaging can shred that to pieces. If you are launching a new product, or maybe re-launching the old product, packaging design can make a huge difference and can’t be overlooked.Packaging design is your one of the most important communication tool. Imagine any supermarket with thousands and thousands of products, on average consumer’s eye can catch only up to a couple of hundreds of different items. And if we talking only about beverages, the number is even smaller. Give a chance for your product to stand out from the rest. First, the consumer has to notice your product and only then he might pick it up and read the label. In general, your packaging design has to be not only attractive but also functional. A consumer has to understand what actually the product is, and trust your product, brand, etc.

It doesn’t matter if you work with experienced packaging design agency or a freelancer, the better you formulate the task, the better understanding the designer will have, therefore the better final result can be. I want to share with you a framework of questions, you should have the answers for when formulating the task for a designer. Think of it as a practical guide that will help you to think about packaging design as a multi-functional element, rather than think just about the logo, or some kind of illustration.

These questions will cover 4 key areas:

• Task
• Brand & Product
• Business environment
• Technical Information

Task

• What is the main goal of your project?
• What are the key challenges for this project?
• What expectations you have for your packaging design?

Brand & Product

• What is the name of the brand?
• What is the category of the product?
• What is your product unique selling point?
• What is the target market for your product?
• What are functional benefits of the product?
• What are emotional benefits of the product?
• What kind of traits does your brand have? (Brand persona, tone of voice)
• What is your brand promise?
• What is your marketing & communication strategy?
• What are your marketing goals?
• What kind of marketing activities do you plan to implement?
• What price category you are targeting?

Business environment

• Product category description
• What is the current situation in this category?
• What is the market you are launching the product in? (Market description)
• What are the direct/indirect competitors? Collect packaging design examples.
• What are your business goals?
• What are the sales channels that you will use? (Description, examples)

Technical information

• The number of SKU’s you are planning to launch.
• What kind of packaging will you use?
• Technical requirements (technical drawing, labeling requirements, etc.)
• Production requirements.

This framework will help you to identify the strengths of your product, brand that can actually be highlighted through packaging design. It covers all major parts and actually helps you understand better your product, brand, goals, etc. When you have answers to all these questions, you can start working with your designer on your amazing packaging design for your product, making sure that nothing essential is left out!

Original article was published in Beverage Industry Blog.

If you take a closer look at the world’s most successful brands, you will definitely find some common principles they use when building the brand and in many cases, it’s nothing about the quality, price or ingredients. You can put two similar products, where one even can be with a lower price, still, many consumers would choose the one with the well-known brand. So how come great brands can even have a bigger profit margin and still win? It’s because of the brand and it’s relation to a consumer. Of course, many of the big brands have huge marketing budgets and can run global advertising campaigns, and it definitely helps them a lot. However, as the former CEO of Starbucks, Howard Schultz once said:

Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last. If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.

Building the brand is not that difficult, but to build the brand that can succeed with its customers in a long-term perspective – that’s a challenge. And it is not only the name or the logo! I always see a brand as a puzzle, with many different parts, such as brand name, positioning, target audience, brand story, brand persona, visual identity, etc. And only if all parts fit together, the consumer can see the whole picture, this way your product can succeed.

What does your brand stand for?

Start by identifying some key reasons why have you started this venture? Why does your brand exist? What purpose does your brand have? The simplest way is to write down the mission statement, which will be the core part of your brand and its elements.

You have to be honest and believe in what you are doing, and the same goes for every employee in your company. You all have to know, understand and believe in the brand values, because if you don’t, how the consumers will? Every major brand starts brand building process inside-out.

Identify your target audience

I have already written about the consumer and how it is important to identify your target audience in my last blog post: Beverage Marketing: Defining Your Target Customer. Now just want to highlight that the better you understand your target audience and its needs, the more effective you can be when building your brand and marketing strategy. Be specific, find their aspirations, needs, dreams, this way you will be able to create the brand that consumers can relate to.

Find the competitive advantage

When it comes to new products and fresh entrepreneurs, very often I hear arguments, that this new product is one of its kind or nobody does that. Well, the reality is if you think so, you probably are extremely wrong. In FMCG market there are always many competitors, direct and indirect, and you have to be clever and creative to build that advantage compared to them.

Somehow the majority of new founders, when it comes to competitive advantage, look for it in the product – how to make it better, different from others. Well, that is the one way to do it, but majority forget that they have to think about other elements too, such as packaging design, brand, positioning, brand promise, etc. Remember, the brand is in the consumer’s mind, so you have to build that image in his head. It is not just your product, it is how you position that product compared to others. You can see in the market many similar products, with similar ingredients, functional benefits, but some are more expensive than others and perceived better by the consumer. Think why it is so. I suggest to comparing different bottled water brands. The product is obviously similar, but somehow one is more popular than other.

Build your brand

I always see the brand as a person. What does he like? What is his story? What are his values? You have to answer those questions in order to succeed with your customers. Yes, products fill our needs, but brands make us want those products. After you set the brand values, identified its strengths and your target audience, you can start building your brand by creating the brand persona and compelling brand story. Brand storytelling is such a wide topic, that I think I will dedicate the whole post about it in near future.

The brand story is not your story! It’s the essence of the brand which connects all parts together, brand values, purpose, promise to consumers. Brands need a story that consumers can connect with.

Recipe or other attributes, such as “Natural ingredients” or “No sugar added” can be easily copied, the brand story what makes your product unique and interesting.

The same goes for the brand persona. It’s the set of treats and values that your brand has, and it is shown through communication with consumers, branding, etc. Make your brand interesting, people are interested in people and stories, not products, no one cares about your product like you do.

Be personal

You have to be smart how you communicate with your consumers. We live in this digital day and age, and globalization is bigger than ever. Everything is within few buttons reach. This way consumer expectations became bigger. Every major brand out there is trying to be personal. Remember it is not about you or your product, it is about that person who is out here. For example, Nike is not about that product, although it is great, or just superstar athletes, it is about that everyday person, who are they trying to inspire – ‘Just do it’. They are not selling just sportswear, they are selling the feeling of winning.

Know your audience, their aspirations, needs, and build your brand around it.

Be consistent

If you want your brand to grow and last longer, you have to be consistent about it. From the very first day know what is your brand and what it represents, and don’t lose it in the process. The minute you will start letting small things go about your brand, it will die. And if you think that consumers won’t notice small things, you are deadly wrong, they definitely will and turn back on you. Every small detail matters, the visual identity, persona, communication tone, content, values, you cannot lose that in the process. Your product is your brand that is the only thing that makes you different from others!

The Brand is the promise for your customers. It helps them to trust you and your product. And trust is not something you can build overnight. It has to be done step by step. This is why you have to be honest and transparent about everything you do with your business. If you lose the trust, you will lose your business. If you will manage to build that trust through your brand, you will build customer loyalty, which can make your brand successful in the long term.

Original article was published in Beverage Industry Blog.

What I’ve noticed, when it comes to marketing, fresh entrepreneurs think of it as only promotional activities. Well, that’s just one part of it. Marketing strategy is a plan that contains your brand positioning, consumer target and the action plan how to reach that consumer and grow your brand. So the first thing you have to think about is the consumer you are targeting. At the end of the day, the consumer buys your product, and if you planning to build a sustainable business you have to sell your product.

Today, we will review simple steps where to start when defining your target customer and how to gather some insights about him, which can be crucial even before you develop your product.

Understand the problems that you want to solve

This is the starting point for you, defining your target customer. To understand others, first, you have to understand yourself. Identify, what kind of problems you want to solve with your product and why it should exist on the market. Write it down, and try to simplify as much as you can. You should be able to explain it with one sentence. Don’t try to overcomplicate it, it’s beverages we are talking about, not some magic potions. Your product should have its’ core benefits that your customer could understand it without any additional education.

Identify consumer needs

Now, you can start to look into different groups of consumers. Try to understand which groups of people have similar needs or problems you want to solve. It is very simple, in order for your marketing to be effective, you have to know who you are marketing to. And to understand that, just simple demographic segmentation is not enough. The reality is that you probably won’t have a big budget to market your product, this is why the better you understand the actual need in the market, the better your results will be.

“Identify what are the consumer needs and how your product can fulfill them.”

 

Try to understand what motivates different groups of consumers, what drives them to purchase different products, what are their dreams or aspirations. This type of info will help you to create the brand that people can relate to and to stand out in the market compared to competitors. If you want to sell your product to people, you have to know who they are first.

Define your target customer

If you assume that you will sell your product to everyone, you are making a big mistake. You must identify you target customer, and be specific about it. The better you will do that, the bigger advantage you will have when building your brand and developing your product. If your description will be generic, you won’t stand out in the market. If you want to target masses, your marketing budget should be formed accordingly. Don’t be afraid to be specific, it will not limit your opportunities but rather will show a clear path to reach that consumer.

So when defining your consumer target, do not limit yourself only with demographics. Dive deeper. Look for their needs, motivation to buy, problems they are facing, what matters to them, etc. The better you understand them, the more effective your marketing strategy will be. And be creative about it, paint their picture, the persona you want to target.

Gather insights

To avoid mistakes, you cannot base your decisions only on your gut feeling or some kind of assumptions. If you do that that will probably lead you to failure. We all probably see the faces of our loved ones on their birthday, when our gift to them is not something they actually need or want. It’s that polite smile, but you can see the disappointment in their eyes. This situation is very similar, don’t offer the product that you think the people need. First, try to find out what do they need. You probably heard plenty of stories, when some huge company buys a smaller brand, well these types of decisions are based on data and numbers. Big companies base their decisions on facts, not assumptions. You should try to find out as much as you can too.

Comprehensive market research can be very expensive and there’s a chance that is not an option for a new startup. But there are alternatives that can be much cheaper, but still effective in first stages of your journey.

The first resource you can try to exploit is the secondary data. It is something that has been already done by others. There are plenty different data online, about different markets, consumers etc. You can search for that info that can be useful for you. Yes, it might cost some money, but still much cheaper than custom research. This is the info that will give you a general understanding of the market and will help you to build first steps of your future business.

Next, you should go a little bit deeper, and try to conduct a more specific research about your target consumers, their needs, motivations, etc. The cheapest way to do that is to go to the place where that consumer shops and simply observe. Just try to be as much objective as you can. Do not base your observations on your assumptions about your product. You should also ask some questions, which can be very valuable for you. I can guarantee you will hear or see something that you haven’t before.

If you already have identified specific target customer, try to search for people that fit those characteristics, and get their feedback about their behavior, when buying products. It is more effective to find people that you don’t know. This way you will get more honest answers.

Customer Concept

The more professional approach to this is to conduct a focus group, containing participants that fit your target customer category perfectly and is moderated by a professional. This process requires a bigger budget, because of space, where the research will be conducted, selection process, incentives, moderation costs, etc.

Another option, that can be very effective for you in various ways, is to build an early-birds community. Usually, these are the people, who fit your customer profile, you involve them in the development process of your product and brand building, they become more emotionally invested in your brand, they want the brand to succeed. Probably not as much as you do, but still.

The process is not easy, but definitely worth to try. First, you have to identify those people and find the motivation for them to get involved in such process, maybe you have to think about some incentives or exclusivity. Over the course of the development process, you involve them in different stages of the decision-making process by asking questions, gathering feedback and opinions. This can be done online or face-to-face. The good thing that can come out of this that not only you get the info you seek, but also there’s a big chance they will become your first customers.

These are just some of the methods you can do when trying do research your target consumer. It doesn’t matter how you will do this, just make sure you do. You have to know who you are marketing to, what motivates people when buying different products. These things will help you to build the unique brand that stands out in the market. Remember, every recipe can be copied, but the brand is what makes your product unique.

To summarize, I would like to point out the most important steps, when defining your target customer:

• Identify your product core benefits (functional & emotional)
• Identify consumer needs
• Define your target consumer & be specific about it.
• Do the research & gather insights.

Original article was published in Beverage Industry Blog.

Today, I want to review different parts of beverage marketing, based on what is usually gets overlooked and where often mistakes are made, especially by fresh baked beverage industry entrepreneurs. You probably have heard of these things tons of times, but you would be surprised how often the same mistakes are made. Keep in mind that this is not something that came from the top of my head, these are the real issues, we see every day while dealing with various clients globally. Over the course of time, we will review different parts of beverage marketing on a broader scale, but now let’s overlook what are the main pillars of beverage marketing, especially for new brands.

Few posts on social media is not beverage marketing

So, where to start first? At first, you must understand how the beverage market works, how competitive it is, what are your capabilities, both experience-wise and financial. The industry is evolving like everything around us, and what was possible 20 years ago is completely different today. The level of competitiveness is higher than ever. That is because to launch a new product became much easier, and we can see tons of new small brands appearing all over the globe. And because it is much easier for small brands to innovate compared to huge companies, retailers and consumers are more open to those innovations.

Sounds good right? Well, there’s another side to it too – retailers are not as patient as they used to be because they have what to choose from.

You will get a very short amount of time to succeed in their market, or your product will be replaced by others. And keep in mind that you cannot compete with big companies, based on different marketing budgets. And somehow you still have to make sure that your product will be selling. This is where marketing comes over.

So what is beverage marketing? No, it’s not only the logo, packaging and few posts on social media. It is a much more complicated process, which starts the same moment you have your idea. And it definitely needs investment, this is why it is important to set up your budget before you even start. It is a long journey and you have to be prepared.

Consumer is the King

The consumer is the first things you have to think about when launching a new beverage product. It is not about you, it is not about your product, it’s all about the consumer. They buy products, they dictate the rules. Pretty obvious, right? However, majority of new beverage entrepreneurs 90% of their time and resources spent on developing the product and forget everything else. It seems that many of them think that you just have to make an amazing innovative product, and everybody will buy it. Well, there’s minimum chance that it will happen’ this way. Don’t get me wrong product is very important. It is that element that builds customer loyalty.

But you have to attract them to try your product in first place.

So when developing your product think about your target customer and actual need that he might have. You must avoid assumptions. Base your decisions on actual market needs. Yes, market research is not a cheap process, but at first there are plenty of alternatives at least to gather some insights that can be very valuable for you. At least go out from your office, and go to the supermarket or other sales premises and just open your eyes, notice how consumers are behaving, what they are buying, etc.

Look through the shelves, see what’s been discounted, which shelves are empty and which parts are’ covered with dust’. Notice how other brands are communicating, what kind of POS material they are using. These things can help you differentiate your product. You can also search on-line for open data sources about different markets with exact data. That can also help you to paint a bigger picture. If you do have some budget for market research, there are plenty of options, but consumer research can be really valuable for you. Please, remember, that opinions of your friends and family are not worth so much to you, because they like you, they cannot be objective.

It also extremely important to identify your target customer. You have to be specific about it. Very often the description of target customer is too generic and it gives no added value to you. If you know exactly who are you targeting, you can find out more, what motivates that specific person, what are his interests, what are his needs. Basically, you can create the product and brand, based on actual existing need in the market, not on your assumptions.

The Product

Innovation is probably the best word that describes current trends with new beverage development. Every new beverage entrepreneur has an idea that will change the world. And what is innovation? It is a better ways of doing things, so we can all agree that it is good. Consumers became more health conscious, they search for better ingredients, higher quality products.

Well, we all know about the war against sugar. Me personally, I’m really happy that staying healthy became some kind of a trend. That is definitely, probably the best trend we’ve had in years.

However, when it comes to new beverage development, entrepreneurs focus only on the recipe and tries to make some kind of magic potion that does everything.

Remember, the product you are developing is for the consumer. Does he understand the core benefit of the product? Do you have to educate consumers about your innovative product? Do you have the budget for that?

My suggestion, find those functional benefits that actually is clear and stick to them. If the product is too complicated, you will have to spend a lot of your resources, just trying to educate people what it actually is. Beverages belong to the FMCG (fast-moving-consumer-goods) category, and decisions made by consumers are also fast, this is why the must understand the core message and benefits of the product right away. So when it comes to the product it is a combination of various motivations, such as functional benefits, emotional benefits, understanding of key ingredients, the brand, etc.

The Brand

When it comes to the brand, many people think only about the visual looks of the brand, logo, and packaging design to be specific. It actually is much, much more. Again, I want to remind the level of competitiveness in the beverage market. In order to compete, you have to stand out. Your brand should have its’ unique point of view, something that consumers could relate to, be emotionally involved. From psychological aspect the majority of decisions we make every day are irrational, but we base them on rational reasons, in other words, we allow ourselves to accept those decisions by some logical reason. So, to base your brand only on those rational reasons like ingredients or functional benefits is not enough.

The brand is not something that is in the bottle or your head, it is actually in consumer’s mind. For that, your brand must have a purpose and story. Imagine your brand as a person. What kind of attributes does it have? How will he communicate? What does he believe in? These attributes can help you differentiate in the market, and give something for consumers to believe in. The brand is not only the fun stuff, it is fundamental.

Any product can be copied. The brand is what makes you different. It is your protection

Packaging Design

Packaging design is another element that gets often overlooked by starting beverage entrepreneurs. You have to understand that packaging design it is the first and best marketing material you have. This is what attracts the consumer, it communicates, represents the product. And it is not just the beautiful graphic design, it must be functional. This is why there are many cases when starting brands, do their designs by themselves and after a while are approaching professionals and ask to fix the existing design. It is always better to do it right at first, rather than fixing it later. Don’t get me wrong, you do not have to overspend, if you have someone really talented in packaging design around you, you can get the result, but please spend more time when creating the design. When we think about the consumer and packaging design, these are the main pillars, how the packaging must affect the consumer:

• Stop
• Engage
• Attract
• Reassure

If your packaging design will have elements that will have all these elements, you might have a chance to be successful in the market.

I am really happy every time I see brave people, who have their dreams. But at the same time, I want to remind you, that you must be smart about it. Beverage brands are not made over night, it takes a lot of effort and various resources. First, evaluate, are you willing to go on that journey. Today, I reminded some of the elements, that you must consider first, even before you even start to develop your product.

We live in a very exciting time when lots of different information is available for us couple clicks away. Use it to your advantage. Research, gather insights, build your budget, evaluate every part of your project and be consistent about it. It is not easy, but definitely doable.

In near future, we will review different parts of beverage marketing on a broader scale, with various practical tips and examples.

Original article was published in Beverage Industry Blog.