In a world cluttered with media noise, packaging has emerged as a remarkably effective advertising tool. Far from being a passive container, packaging is an active communicator, broadcasting perceptions of quality, personality and effectiveness.
Delivering Sales
Packaging’s most immediate job is to convert attention into action at the point of purchase. Speaking to the shoppers’ mission – be that taste for snacks, refreshment for beverages, or effectiveness for personal care – is the most effective way helping consumers make a snap decision to choose the brand.
Taking the time to develop effective distinctive brand assets – think Coke’s logo; Heineken’s Star; or Cadbury’s Glass & Half – help cue the cupboard full of memories shoppers have about the brand, triggering familiarity and imagery associations which lead to purchase.
Speaking directly to the shopper mission – showing the delicious bowl of cereal, as we know taste drives breakfast categories; or the clean, white bathroom, as we know efficacy drives home care categories – telegraphs the relevance of the pack to that mission, again aiding purchase.
Building Brand Identify
New entrants and brand extensions must balance leveraging these cues on pack, whilst also signalling a point of difference to disrupt habitual behaviour and capture attention.
Consider Tony’s Chocolonely. The Dutch ethical chocolate brand uses bold colours, chunky fonts, and deliberately uneven chocolate segments to convey its activist message: that chocolate should be fair and slave-free. Even without reading a word, the packaging communicates the brand’s values—fun, justice, and disruption. And by refusing to conform to category aesthetics, Tony’s has created a visual language entirely its own, instantly recognisable from afar.
Similarly, Method, the eco-cleaning brand, uses packaging design to elevate an otherwise mundane category. Their colourful, teardrop-shaped bottles look more like premium hand soap than household cleaners, prompting shelf standout in a largely functional aisle. Consumers frequently report buying Method “because it looked nice” or “felt different.” Here, the packaging not only sells but reframes expectations of what the product is and who it’s for.
In both examples, packaging works like a shelf-level billboard: grabbing attention, communicating key messages, and prompting behaviour—all in seconds.
Generating Buzz
Beyond the shelf, packaging has evolved into a media channel in its own right. Social sharing, unboxing culture, and influencer marketing have turned the physical pack into a moment of digital storytelling. Brands now design with virality in mind.
The most recent example of that is Cadbury Dairy Milk’s Made To Share campaign, which is the latest evolution of buzz-orientated packaging popularised by Coca Cola, with the ‘Share A Coke’ campaign in 2011. Made To Share speaks directly to the shopper mission of a sharing chocolate, whilst also being playful and cheeky, and in so doing became a viral sensation when first launched.
Standalone Advertising
Packaging can work most directly as a form of advertising when the packaging itself becomes a statement piece. Voss Water disrupted the water category, the elegant, glass cylinders commonly found on boardrooms everywhere are an additional free advertising medium for the brand. Karyatis olive oil’s bright pastel colours is a similar example, challenging the norm of dull, glass with bright, sleek metal packaging, more likely to be added to kitchens and tabletops.
Signalling Values
As brands seek to become more sustainable, packaging again becomes a primary tool for advertising and communicating their efforts in this space. Many new entrants – who better able to challenge existing brands on sustainability credentials – make a conscious choice to use brown, kraft paper in the packaging, immediately cue associations of paper. Established brands are beginning to echo this. Smarties paper packaging, cues this with brown, paper designs on the pack. Diageo’s recent launch of a paper-based bottle of Johnnie Walker encapsulates the brands desire to reduce its footprint.
There are many ways brands are signalling values – from refillable packs, such as The Body Shop’s in-store refill stations or Dove’s refillable deodorant pods, to concentrated formats like Persil’s eco-refill laundry detergent pouches – but brands also need to walk a fine line of not over-promising. Walkers Multipacks celebrates a move to paper packaging, but the inner, individual bags remain plastic, risking a perception of greenwashing.
Conclusion: Strategy in the Structure
Packaging is often the only brand touchpoint that is guaranteed to reach every buyer. The best packaging is rooted in clear strategic intent. Whether optimising for sales, generating buzz, or strengthening identity, it requires marketers to think beyond graphics. Structure, materials, opening mechanics, messaging hierarchy—all of these influence how the pack performs.
In a fragmented media environment, packaging is one of the last few “owned” assets a brand controls. Treating it like an afterthought is not only a missed opportunity—it’s marketing malpractice. Because when done well, packaging doesn’t just contain the product. It is the advertising.
Photo by Jack Gardner on Unsplash
- Patrick Young is the MD of PRS IN VIVO, a consumer research firm specialising in packaging, shopper behaviour and innovation.