Personalized Packaging: Added Cost or Added Value?

Traditionally, product packaging is seen as added cost. With the additional investment required to design and print product packages, business owners often consider packaging as optional. If they can sell products with only a plastic or simple carton to cover them, then why spend additional money for the packaging?

Recently, though, personalized packaging are seen by huge brands as a great advertising strategy. Big companies are taking advantage of creating customized packages which the customers themselves designed.  Coca-Cola, for instance, wrote some of the common people names on their bottles. The purpose was to create unique and mesmerizing packages while at the same time promoting customer interaction.

Heinz also created a similar campaign by offering custom printed soup labels through their Facebook page. I wouldn't be surprised if other companies, even small retailers, will come up with their own personalized packaging in the hope of attracting the attention of their fickle customers.

What would this mean to print providers? More customers. Digital and short-run printing will rise as demand for personalized packages will increase. Print industries with the likes of PrintPlace that produce such print services will only need to update and improve their service to get more clients. They can even suggest the inclusion of QR codes as added benefit of the packaging’s design as contrary to popular belief these codes are not only ideal on printed business cards but on packaging as well. With top class service and innovative technologies, businesses will have a hard time ignoring the lure of personalized packaging to perk up their business.

More and more companies are also ordering smaller quantities more frequently in order to target customers with more precision. This gives more and frequent customers to print providers, thus, ensuring continued revenue to them. Additionally, this will reduce print waste as short print runs only produce what is necessary.

Still, more sophisticated and innovative packaging presses are needed to sustain the personalized packaging need of companies. The next breed of low-cost packaging presses are still to come; when they are released, we can expect to see more personalized and interactive packages. Then we can truly say that personalized packaging is not an added cost rather an added value.

Image credit: http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2011/10/heinz_coca-cola_john_west.php