Packaging is one of those things that keeps me up at night.. it has to be perfect, and I have a need to change it every couple of years to keep things fresh..
Think about how packaging impacts your daily choices..
Packaging Plays an Important Role for Branding 
Building a highly recognizable brand is important for businesses looking to thrive in today’s competitive marketplace, and every company should have some sort of plan. However, constructing a more visible brand is never easy and needs to feature multiple strategies.
Of course, great advertisements are always a key component of branding. “The holy grail for advertising today is the same as it’s always been: to rise above the fray of soulless sales pitches and become part of culture. Not just being recalled or remembered but hitting a nerve and becoming both share-worthy and meaningful,” said 180LA chief creative officer William Gelner. “The best brands get that. They aim higher.”
There isn’t one definition that defines a great ad, and what works for one company will not always work for another. According to Derek Rucker, a marketing professor at Northwestern University, there is not “one magic bullet that succeeds in making an advertisement truly memorable.” But he does think advertising is about “being different from one’s peers and finding a way to engage the consumer’s psyche.”
“The best ads don’t just make us laugh or cry.” Susan Credle, chief creative officer at Leo Burnett adds. “They change a conversation.”
Though sometimes overlooked because of robust ad and marketing campaigns, packages themselves can be an important tool for branding. While safety or longevity might be the main priority behind how packages are designed, they are a major component of building a great brand.
“Packaging is often the first point of contact with a brand especially if it’s a challenger brand that doesn’t have a budget for above-the-line advertising, so packaging is the most important thing they’ve got to communicate with the consumer,” says Simon Forster of Robot Food. “There’s a mistake with brand’s thinking they need to do everything, when in fact all they need is to do what they do do well. Packaging is very much a big part of a brand’s story.”
Simon Preece of Elmwood Design adds to the importance of a good package. He says, “Packaging is absolutely fundamental and I would say the most important element in the customer purchasing journey, and that’s whether you’re a leading brand or a challenger brand.”
What might come as a surprise is that branding, especially with the use of unique packages, is not reserved for items like makeup or food. In fact, it plays a major role in the pharmaceutical industry. Consumers might not consider how competitive the industry is, especially since it is based on keeping people healthy, but marketing and brand development are major components.
In fact, stats compiled by Statistic Brain show that three of the most prominent pharmaceutical manufacturers actually own just a single drug that generates more than $4.5 billion in sales every year. Companies who want to gain footing in the industry and compete with some of the top dogs will have to find ways to be creative and stand out. Providing a quality product is an obvious must, but packaging should be used to create a reliable brand as well.
Perhaps as a result of that, the pharmaceutical packaging industry is constantly growing. A recent report by MarketsandMarkets released earlier this month found that the pharmaceutical packaging market will be worth nearly $80 billion by 2018. It says that North America, Western Europe, and Japan are the key markets, and new sophisticated therapies will lead to a greater need for specialized packaging.
It also states that, “Plastic bottles and blister packs are the topmost packaging segments by revenue and plastics & polymers dominates as the key raw material in the pharmaceutical packaging market.”
The report does not make mention of the marketability of packages, but, without a doubt, that will play an important role in the growth of the market as branding remains and important part of every industry, including pharmaceuticals.