Top 10 personalised packaging
We all like to feel special. We’re happy to buy products that make us feel this way. It’s no wonder then that personalisation has become a major trend in retail. We want what we own to be as unique as we are. One size does not fit all. This extends to product packaging. Personalised packaging doesn’t just help a brand stand out; it also makes even everyday objects seem more special. Suddenly you’re happy to gift someone a jar of spread or a bottle of fizzy drink because it has their name on it. It elevates the item and makes it look like you’ve put some individual thought into it. Don’t take our word for it though. A study by Packaging Innovations and ThePackHub found that (of 335 leading brand owners, retailers, suppliers, agencies and packaging professionals) 63.7% feel personalised packaging increases sales, and 52.8% feel that personalisation projects have a positive impact on consumer loyalty. With that in mind, below are 10 of the best examples of personalised packaging out there:
- Coca-Cola bottle
Let’s start with the king of this trend – Coca-Cola. The soft drink giant has been playing around with personalisation of its products for years. This includes its regular run of Coke bottles with names on them, which encourages people to search the shelves for one with their own on it. However, Coca-Cola has also made it possible for anyone to personalise a bottle whenever they like from its website. It’s a very simple service, but one that helps foster an emotional connection with the brand.
- Function of Beauty bottle
Online haircare company Function of Beauty has shaken up the way we buy shampoo and conditioner. The company personalises every step of the process to ensure the end product is the perfect fit for the customer. It does this via an online quiz that asks what type of hair you have, your hair goals and colour/scent preferences. What’s great though is that having created this very personal formula you get to choose a name to be printed on the bottle. That way everyone knows it’s made for you.
- L’Oreal Color & Co hair dye
Another company exploring personalisation for hair is L’Oreal. Its new Color & Co service offers to create a unique, personalised, salon-quality hair dye for customers to use at home. Like Function of Beauty you can fill out a quiz about your hair and colour aims, or you can have a video call with an expert who will provide advice. The personalisation doesn’t just end at the colour though – it also comes in a bottle with your name on it. Super simple, but it feels a little special. It makes the customer an individual.
- Marmite jar
If you love it, then you’d probably love your own personalised jar of Marmite. Luckily the brand has made it easy to get any name you like printed onto one of its jars. Simply go to the website, follow the instructions and you can have your own personalised jar turn up in the post. Given that Marmite’s brand identity already works off the idea of people being massive fans (or not) of its products, it makes sense to allow people to wear that love on their sleeve (or jar).
- KitKat packets
KitKat has also got in on the personalisation act in the past. Rather than just letting customers pay to personalise their KitKat wrapper, Nestle offered it as a competition prize. Promotional KitKat wrappers contained codes which customers entered online along with their desired photo and/or message. The chosen winners then had their design printed onto a KitKat wrapper and posted to them. It shows that the ability to make something unique can be a real traffic driver.
- Nutella jar
Along the same lines as the Marmite offering, Nutella regularly offers the chance for fans to personalise a jar with their own name or phrase. Available both in certain partner stores and online, it’s a cute idea for making people feel closer to the brand. Having your name on something automatically makes you feel more ownership over it. That ownership can spawn the kind of loyalty that brands crave from customers.
- Bear Naked granola
The Bear Naked granola company has added personalisation to its entire product process. Customers can choose from over 50 different ingredients, which together with IBM’s Watson tech, are combined into their own unique granola blend. Once the flavours have been chosen, you then get to personalise the packaging with your choice of bear graphic or by uploading your own photo to turn yourself into a bear. It turns the idea of cereal into something more elevated.
- Smile with Lay’s
This campaign from crisp brand Lay’s printed a variety of different smiles onto its crisp bags. Shoppers were encouraged to hold the bags up to their own face and snap a photo (so it looked like the smile was their own). If someone else’s smile wasn’t enough for you though, you could visit the Lay’s website to get an image of your own grin custom printed onto a bag. The idea added a bit of fun to the personalisation trend.
- Moët Hennessy Veuve Clicquot pop-up
Moët Hennessy tapped personalisation for its recent Veuve Clicquot champagne pop-up in Frankfurt Airport. Shoppers could personalise limited edition bottles of the brand’s rose and normal champagne. This is nice in its own right, but we also loved the additional personalisation option of the pencil shaped gift tins. The tin keeps the champagne cold for up to two hours which means it’s the perfect option for a gift, while the personalisation means you need no other packaging.
- KIKO Milano lipstick
Over at beauty brand KIKO Milano’s KIKOiD store in Milan you can super-personalise your lipstick. Customers use a touchscreen to pick the shade of lipstick they want, select the cap, and then choose lettering and icons to be engraved on it. The finished design is then engraved into the lipstick by a robot while you watch. It’s a slick little piece of personalisation with the added bonus of providing a bit of retail theatre at the same time. Operating in 21 markets, Italy's leading cosmetic brand KIKO MILANO recognized the need for a tool to help them take control of their data and ensure their products were on shelves in lightening speeds. They turned to Centric Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions to digitally transform their business - saving time, controlling costs and optimising their processes that take products from an idea to a firm favourite in consumer's make up bags.
By Cate Trotter, Head of Trends, Insider Trends, London
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