Every Great Brand tells a Story
Your Packaging should too.
The 5 Packaging Principles that make-or-break sales
Many brands underestimate the power of packaging.
Yet, it’s one of the most powerful brand-building and sales-driving tools available.
Packaging acts as a silent salesman — It either drives sales or lets people walk right past. Your packaging needs to do the heavy lifting: grab attention, reinforce recognition, communicate benefits, simplify choices and create desire. When done right, it not only accelerates growth but builds long-term brand equity.
After decades of experience in both marketing and design leadership - working on global brands at P&G and as a partner at Nimble Studios - I’ve seen firsthand what works, what doesn’t, and why some brands consistently win at shelf. The best-performing packaging follows these five fundamental principles:
Be Distinctive to get Noticed
1
If your brand doesn’t stand out, it won’t sell. Shoppers make decisions in split seconds, and your packaging must break through the clutter. Owning a bold, recognizable color, shape, or visual asset is critical to stopping people in their tracks. People can’t buy what they don’t see.
Coke and Tide have built strong, unmistakable color assets that make them pop off the shelf - even when viewed from a distance or in peripheral vision.
Febreze carved out a unique nozzle shape, ensuring automatic attention at the shelf.
These brands have evolved their designs over time while maintaining their core distinctiveness, ensuring they stay relevant without losing their stopping power.
Repetition builds recognition. If consumers see your brand one way in advertising, your packaging should reinforce those same cues at shelf.
Strong brands leverage logos, colors, and distinctive assets consistently, so shoppers recognize them at a glance - even without reading.
Many brands fall into the trap of redesigning too aggressively, sacrificing hard-earned familiarity. If your brand is healthy, the key is evolution, not revolution - keeping your look fresh and contemporary while preserving the core assets that make you instantly recognizable.
People don’t buy brands - they buy benefits. Packaging should communicate the benefit intuitively - visually first, words second. If a shopper has to search for what your product does, they’ll move on.
Clarity sells. A strong hierarchy of information ensures the shopper immediately understands why your product is the best choice. If your product is superior to competition, make this obvious to the shopper.
A useful way to test this is the 5-second rule - if a shopper unfamiliar with your brand can’t instantly tell what your product does, your packaging needs work. Quick, clear benefit communication is essential.
2
3
Be Familiar to be Recognized
Ensure your Benefit Shines through Clearly
Be Easy to Shop
4
A great packaging system must work at both the brand level and the variant level. Your design should maximize total brand impact on shelf while making individual versions easy to shop.
The key is finding the right balance between:
Brand Unifiers: Elements that create a strong, cohesive brand block at retail to strengthen shelf pop (dominant brand color, shape, or bold signature element).
Variant Differentiators: Elements that clearly distinguish different product variants (clear visual cues such as cap colors, secondary label colors, intuitive ingredient imagery).
Failing here leads to shopper confusion - which results in lost sales. A notable example is when brands fail to differentiate product versions clearly, leading to customers accidentally purchasing the wrong SKU. This creates frustration when shoppers get home and realize they spent their money on the wrong product - something that may even prevent them from repurchasing the brand. The easier you make it for consumers to find their preferred variant, the more likely you are to build total brand sales.
Beyond function, exceptional packaging creates desire.
The most successful packaging does this by:
Benefit storytelling - bringing the product's promise to life with depth and meaning.
Copywriting as a delighter - witty, engaging, or emotionally resonant messaging that enhances the packaging experience.
Beautiful aesthetics - Great design is more than the sum of its parts. It's the art of crafting a visual concept that captivates. Thoughtful color choices, harmonious layouts, meaningful typography, unexpected use of iconic assets and balanced compositions naturally attract the eye. But it’s the way they all come together - with intention, precision, and creativity - that makes a design truly irresistible.
Embellishments: Leveraging premium finishes, textures, or structures that elevate product value perception.
The best packaging makes people want to pick it up and buy it.
5
Be Irresistible
Is Your Packaging Working for You?
Is your packaging firing on all 5 cylinders? Many brands leave growth opportunities on the table by not maximizing their packaging’s potential. The best packaging is intentional - it drives sales and builds long-term brand value.
I’ve put together a detailed, 4-page guide with deeper insights, examples, and actionable tips to help brands elevate their packaging strategy.
If you're curious about how these principles apply to your brand, I'd be happy to explore it with you. Click on the button below. I’ll take a closer look at your brand and packaging, discuss initial ideas for improvement, and identify ways to strengthen its impact at retail to accelerate your sales and build your brand.