Stimulate the customer experience through the senses!
6min read
11/02/2021
When it comes to e-commerce, packaging must first and foremost be functional and provide the necessary protection. In addition, the packaging must contribute to a good customer experience, create loyalty and brand value.
Beautiful colours, attractive materials, environmentally friendly packaging and good slogans can be complemented by a sensory stimulus – and make an additional impression on the customer, possibly on special occasions or themes – for example Valentine’s Day.
Read more about sensory stimuli and get great ideas through the post below – enjoy!
A new way to package
A “Sensory Package” is a package designed to create a special buying experience. A package that makes customers respond fully to the 5 senses.
In itself the concept is nothing new, traditional retail has been doing it for ages in physical stores. Lighting, decoration, background music, smells… etc. it’s all designed to make us feel in a special way and make us buy, buy and buy. E-commerce companies now want to bring this shopping experience online – and here the packaging that meets the customer is the best option.
It has been established that packaging with special effects attracts more attention, increases the value of the product and ultimately drives sales. Think mainly of effects, something you can see and feel, but also effects that affect smell, taste and hearing. By playing on the senses, you stimulate your customer’s curiosity and add a playful element to your product.
The senses:
See, feel, smell, hear and touch.
1: To see !
We start our journey through our eyes and seeing. The first thing the customer sees when receiving the package is its exterior. Make sure the customer can quickly identify your brand, possibly by colours, slogans/quotes and logos. The closer the product and the message are to each other, the greater the impact of the package will be.
Researchers from Boston College in the US have shown that you can easily manipulate a customer withcolour saturation. 1 Packaging with bold, bright colours makes us think the product is bigger. But don’t bombard your customer with a grand visual. You often hear ” less is more “. And that’s true here too.
2: To feel !
When we take a cardboard box in our hands, the paper type and surface play the first role. Robust cardboard, such as kraftliner and double or triple corrugated cardboard, has a better quality and ensures a higher brand value.
You can also do a lot of other things to the exterior of your packaging – it’s important that your packaging looks and feels lifelike. This can be done by working with relief printing or some special printing, for example. You can also coat with different varnishes to give a different soft and possibly velvety effect.
Studies have shown that the shape of a product’s packaging affects the perception of a product. “For example, angular packaging and logos are associated with strong robust brands, they exude energy and represent a strong ‘foundation’. Rounder shapes are associated with friendliness, softness and harmony. ” 2
3: to smell !
Our sense of smell has a profound influence on our thinking and acting. The zones of our brain that process smell are very close to the zones where we store memories and emotions. This allows you to create a‘positive, cognitive trigger’ for the customer when they open a lovely scented package.
Specialist packaging manufacturers have now come up with the idea of integrating microcapsules into the packaging. 3 As soon as a customer touches the packaging, a fragrance is released. The Dutch brand Scotch & Soda is worth mentioning as an example.They deliver anything but a boring package: an elegant black box, an invoice with golden letters and the scent of perfume when you unfold the tissue paper. A unique experience that lingers.
4: To hear !
The greatest research into senses vs. packaging, focus on what we can see and feel, therefore the research into the sound properties of packaging, is still in its infancy. The fact is that certain packaging sounds are inextricably linked to a product. Think of opening a soft drink or the typical cracking of a bag of crisps.
A simple way to link sound to your packaging is to use a QR code. QR codes have been bridging the gap between the physical and digital worlds for years. By scanning the code, you can listen to a message on your smartphone.Another option is to integrate printed electronics and RFID chips ( Radio Frequency Identification ) to place audio in the packaging. 4 The audio fragment can be played via a push button on the packaging or via a smart device.
You can even go a step further, as some apps can recognise products. The UK supermarket chain Tesco, for example, used this principle in its wine department. Customers could simply ‘scan’ a wine bottle with their smartphone, which then showed a video of the wine producer in question.
5: Tasting
The final sense is the sense of taste. The appearance, colour and shape of packaging have a big impact on our perception of a product, especially when it comes to the taste of drinks and food .
Charles Spence, a psychologist at Oxford University, explored several links between packaging and our sense of taste. For example, his research has shown that a strawberry dessert tastes up to 10% sweeter in a white package, rather than a black one. The taste of coffee is experienced twice as intensely when drunk from a white mug rather than a transparent glass.
The fact that packaging influences taste perception is also illustrated by the following example of Coca-Cola: in 2011, Coca-Cola changed the look of its classic red cans for the first time on its 125th anniversary.The cans were dressed in a white jacket and featured polar bears. Complaints from consumers about the taste of their favorite drink soon started pouring in. Even though Coca-Cola hadn’t changed the taste at all – they were forced to reintroduce the red cans. So there you go … our senses can sometimes do some crazy things.
Contact our packaging specialists on 44 58 77 00 to find out more about bespoke packaging – or take a look at our website right here:
https://www.rajapack.dk/emballage-med-tryk_cms_000069.html
Sources:
1http://www.faqt.nl/recent/we-betalen-meer-voor-color-producten/
2https://www.flandersfood.com/artikel/2010/12/02/inlood-van- packaging-design-flavour-perception/
3https://www.packaginginnovation.com/packaging-design/innovative-packaging-2/smells-like-sale-scented-packaging-trending/
4http: //www.chokoe. nl / stimulus-sense-intelligent-packaging /
5https://www.klbdkosher.org/news-and-articles/can-packaging-affect-taste/
