Packaging is integral to the experience of a luxury product.
The key word for brands there is ‘experience’. When developing solutions for luxury products, brands and their packaging partners must look beyond striking aesthetics – as vital as they are – and consider how they can turn their packaging into an irresistible experience for the end user.
How well do you know your customers? Increasingly, progressive businesses are shifting their focus from customer experience to human experience.
Demand for luxury shows no signs of abating. For consumers, navigating a shifting and unpredictable world leaves us feeling uneasy and anxious, an emotional state we attempt to lift through positive experiences like luxury purchases. The idea of luxury paves the way for a more considered and imaginative approach that brings something to relish and enjoy.
Luxury brands have always used packaging as an effective way to showcase their quality to the consumer, but with stricter regulations on the way, this is all set to change. From research and development to design and display, so much is at stake in a fast-growing industry worth $2.3 billion in Europe alone.
Real luxury
A brand will naturally retain customers if it provides customers with a positive experience through easy, effortless, and efficient transactions.
But if this is the destination, then what of the journey?
There’s a comprehensive checklist of all the factors you should keep in mind, from dreaming up the initial concept and design to putting the finishing touches on the final packaging project.
This kind of careful attention to detail makes the difference between a pack that looks and feels opulent and one that doesn’t – so it’s vital to ensure that no project element is overlooked.
Brands must contend with the sustainability of materials and production costs. Still, they must also create something that looks appealing, feels luxurious and stands out in a highly competitive field. And if that wasn’t enough, designers also must consider trends, the current economic climate, and other external factors that could make or break a product on the shelf.
More than any other type of packaging, luxury packs rely on the feeling they evoke in customers. Everything about the luxury space hinges on creating this air of opulence and exclusivity – from a brand’s identity to its pricing and the intricate details of the packaging design that delivers the bespoke feeling that a luxury brand strives to create. Several elements weave together to conjure up a spell that convinces consumers to buy a product they might not need but can’t resist.
However, the explosion of ‘masstige’ brands means consumers have become accustomed to a higher level of quality from all packaging. Enhanced packaging techniques that were once the preserve of the luxury sector – like foiling and tactile varnishes – are increasingly common even in budget price brackets. Converters may find it more challenging to provide customers in the luxury space with the point-of-difference they require as the gap in aesthetic quality narrows.
Luxury isn’t just about what you buy any more. It’s about what you know about the brand you are buying from. Fundamental changes are on the horizon. The younger generation is entering the luxury market, bringing new values and demands that will redefine the very meaning of luxury.
Valued by customers more for what they symbolise than what they do, brands are looking to develop substance beyond a high-quality product or a desirable logo.
Packaging must now prioritise customers – the only people with the money to make a brand sink or swim. Today, brands are stepping up with mind-blowing packaging ideas that set them apart.
While it might seem that even the most pedestrian offering can be dressed up as luxury or luxurious nowadays, no stone can be left unturned, and it’s what a person values or finds interesting that could determine what ‘luxury’ is for that person.
Creating Opening Experiences
In this environment, how consumers get into a pack is as important as what’s on the outside. This can present a challenge for brands and their packaging suppliers as it expands the role of packaging beyond the point of purchase.
Luxury packaging should strive to be more than just an attractive, protective façade ending up in the bin after opening. It can enhance the experience of purchasing, opening, and consuming the product. This experience can help create a lifelong connection between brands and consumers – something every converter should aim to provide to their luxury customers.
Perhaps just as critically, interacting with the packaging should not cause any detrimental impact on the consumers’ feelings towards the product and brand.
The opening or unboxing experience is a vital part of this process and is one that 57% of consumers listed as a key packaging frustration in our recent consumer survey.
An easy-open tear tape will go a long way towards making this aim a reality. Tear tapes eliminate frustration in the opening process, turning it into an effortless, satisfying experience for the consumer and avoiding the ‘wrap rage’ that can instantly turn anticipation into anger.
Using tapes, such as Rippatape® or Supastrip®, gives brands a way to put their best foot forward through their packaging design. Quick, easy, blade-free access to packaging eliminates the frustrating opening experiences that can harm a luxury product unboxing.
Tear tapes enable converters to offer their customers complete control over the opening experience. Filtrona Tapes wants to make it easy to enhance your packaging in whatever industry you are in. For over 100 years, we have provided solutions that Open, Close, Inform and Protect, enabling our customers to improve the consumer experience with packaging.
And it’s not just ‘wrap rage’ that tapes can help resolve. Our solutions can provide on-shelf appeal with our photogravure print expertise, distinguish between real and fake products with brand protection solutions, and help reduce waste and meet sustainability goals.
Say Halo to Sustainable Luxury
For those who see the opportunity for packaging to play a powerful role in the world around us, both the Rippatape® and Supastrip® tape product lines are now available in sustainable, high-performance material options. Our growing ECO Range of sustainable tape solutions aims to satisfy the sustainable luxury megatrend without compromising on the opening experience.
Supastrip® PCR was a tear tape first, being made from a film using a minimum of 70% post-consumer recycled plastic. Targeting flexible packaging applications, Supastrip® PCR offers all of the benefits of our standard Supastrip® range, including the ability to include photo-quality designs, 2-side print and authentication features.
If your packaging is fibre-based, Rippatape® Halo has been specifically developed to help brands and converters meet their environmental goals while providing customers with more circular curbside recyclable packaging options.
This paper tear tape is externally certified as recyclable, with paper achieving an A+ level via the Italian National Recyclability Standard: UNI 11743 and MC 501: 2017 criteria. This means that Rippatape® Halo is recyclable along with paper and board packs, is fully reclaimable, eliminates the plastic film used in standard tear tapes, and focuses on fibre recovery.
We have engineered our ECO Range tape solutions to deliver environmental benefits without compromising on performance, allowing converters to meet the sustainability demands of their customers and the broader luxury sector.
Luxury in simplicity
Packaging means something different for every business. Understanding its role in your end consumer’s experience, among departments in your organisation or your entire value chain, is critical to driving impact. Through activating our total tape solutions, you can do so firmly in the knowledge that reinforced creative and frustration-free packaging will give you a competitive advantage.
Increasingly, brands are stepping into a world where packaging becomes an enchanting art form, where every curve, colour, and detail tells a captivating story. The unboxing experience plays a significant role in satisfying consumers’ curiosity. Well-designed packaging and surprise elements enhance the sense of anticipation and delight during the unboxing process.
With increasing expectations for packaging performance, including sustainability agendas, it must be stronger and more compelling inside and out. Enhancing the perception of luxury and elevating the unboxing process to a sensory delight, tear tapes can be the small recurring detail that catapults your packaging to the next level.
