Packages, especially luxury package, matter to brands a lot, because it’s a physical representation of that brand, everything from how it sounds, how it smells, how it feels, even how it holds up over time.
1. Sound speaks the quality of your products
We always talk to brands about sound when we talk about package. A good example is if you have a box that’s full of tissue and you open up that box and tissue. The tissue has, like, a really high pitch crinkly sound. It’s the same stuff that your grandma would put in a shopping bag when she gave it to you as a gift. The card with the $5 your grandma would put in there for you has a certain value to it. Now you bought a $5000 dress with the same sound. It doesn’t really help, but you have to have better quality material. You need to have a better experience than that.
Even if you’re looking at a folding carton versus a rigid box. When you open up a folding carton or when you open up a tuck box, there’s a sound when you dig your nail into that tuck to be able to open it up, there’s a sound. And it’s not a fine and wonderful sound if it’s like a Colgate box. But it’s not the sound that you want to hear when you open up a box to reveal your Rolex.
2. Feeling of your luxury package’s weight and materials reflects your customers’ unboxing experience
Imagine this: if you bought a $5000 dress and it showed up on your doorstep in a Poly Mailer with a label on it, you’re not going to value that product as a $5000 piece. The brand doesn’t respect it, and neither will your consumer. So the packaging is really part of the product experience.
The feeling of weight for a luxury package also matters. So an example is, like, for E-commerce, a lot of the brands that have moved to E-commerce are using a B and an E flute or a B and a C flute. They’re making this board so much heavier. So if you buy a $300 T-shirt from a brand that weighs nothing, and you get this box in your mail, and it has this weight to it. Yes, that weight adds value. Again, if it’s a Polybag, it feels like a $10 shirt that you got off of Amazon. You probably give your customer a very bad unboxing experience which they might think it’s not worth it.
3. Smell can devalue your products in some ways
The scent is something that you should have serious attention because it validates that consumer’s purchase and all of those things, like is it the same warehouse where your trucks come in and the exhaust goes into the warehouse? And when the packaging leaves, it has that smell to it. Because if it does, it’s devaluing the product. So it’s just all these little different senses that go into the packaging to validate that product purchase is what’s really behind the value and packaging for luxury brands.
Packaging is not a small part of your product. It’s about how your products are presented to your customers. From the weight when they receive it, from the sound when they open it, and from the smell when they hold up the products. It’s all about the wonderful journey you would bring to your customers.
