Printing Arts Press Blog: Word on the Street: April 2021

Monday, April 26, 2021

Brand Messages that Spark Sales: Why Authenticity is More Important Than Ever

As pandemic patience wanes, consumers are getting restless.

Many people are ready to get back to “real life,” to return to a routine, go on vacation, or be less conservative in their spending. This means this is a great season to kickstart a new marketing campaign!

Striking the right tone can be a challenge. Are you looking for relevance and timely messaging? In this sensitive cultural moment, it can be hard to say just the right thing. But bland clichés don’t sell products. Today, many brands are tempted to offer platitudes centered around themes of unity, healing, and getting along. Businesses are falling over themselves as they promise to be “here for you,” or remind us that, “in these uncertain times, we care about your needs.”

Skip the Platitudes

There is a better alternative, and it starts with authenticity.

Authentic marketing means the heart of your business connects directly and deeply to the core of your audience. It's now time to stop hiding behind cheesy messages about how we’re “all in this together.” Instead, be bold and straightforward about matching the products you offer with the needs people have.

Today’s consumers can smell artificial ads a mile away, and it is a major turnoff. According to one survey, 84 percent of millennials stated that they don’t like advertising, and the increasingly fake tone of today’s campaigns certainly won’t help. When you want to inspire action, start with your own unique brand voice, and build messages that inspire action.

What might that look like? Rick Maynard, senior manager of public relations for Kentucky Fried Chicken, explains the authenticity of KFC’s brand voice like this:

“KFC’s social purpose is to celebrate ‘real.’ To us, being real means being honest, inclusive, boldly unapologetic, refreshingly to the point, insightful and occasionally, a little edgy. We steer clear of being artificial, judgmental, insecure, full of hot air, timid or gimmicky. We try to celebrate our real fans, engage in real talk and encourage real consumer-generated content. We prefer ‘man on the street’ images over staged food shots. That’s what being authentic means to our brand. And the great thing about being real is it’s also really easy. It’s much more difficult to try to be something you’re not."

To avoid a hollow, insincere tone, be as conversational as possible. This may be friendly, direct or daring, but it dials down on what you have to offer and why someone should respond.

Activate Consumer Instincts

What will drive people’s instincts to spend, make purchases that they’ve put on hold, and resume more normal customer behavior patterns? And how can you trigger those instincts?

First, your advertising should validate consumers’ need for preservation. Reflect an understanding of their natural desire to feel safe – like a prevention focus.

A Prevention Focus frames marketing messages around the problems a product can avert. Prevention themes are excellent for identifying problems and advocating for safety, personal health, long-term solvency, crisis aversion, etc.

Authentic advertising should also help edge consumers more toward the perseverance or benefit side – like a gain focus.

A Gain Focus frames marketing messages around the benefits a product can provide. Benefit/gain themes are essential for brands selling security, reliability, peace, and comfort.

Reboot Your Image

Most consumers believe that most brands are not creating authentic content that meets them where they are at.

If you want to restart your sales engine, focus on what marketing can do best: reach people’s innermost mental processes and trigger their instincts to buy. Use a genuine voice, connect with your customers' benefit or prevention needs, and get straight to the point.

To contact Chuck Gherman, Theresa Kauser or Veronica Carter for more information about how Printing Arts Press powered by PROforma can help organizations with their Marketing and Human Resource needs through promotion and print communications please visit www.printingartspress.com.

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Monday, April 19, 2021

Glamorize Your Products with Illustrative Package Designs

Natural Life is a retailer focusing on women’s Bohemian clothes, accessories, and gifts.

Its founder, Patti Hughes, says the business was inspired by her mom, who ran a crafting studio out of the family basement, and was rarely seen without sawdust in her hair or a paintbrush behind her ear.

Modeled after global artisan markets, Natural Life believes its products are more than just commodities. The brand calls these products “treasures” because they are things you stumble upon – things you just can’t resist – while you are out and about. Whether it’s moving artwork or a special surprise for that one-of-a-kind friend, Natural Life inspires people to “give and live happy.”

Natural Life’s Boho Bandeaus are one of its most irresistible items. Bandeaus can be styled as face masks, hair bandanas, scrunchies, halter tops, armbands, ponytail holders, and more. While Boho Bandeaus come in gorgeous floral, tie-dye, and camo prints, the packaging nearly trumps the product that is wrapped around it. Made of rustic, recyclable brown paperboard, the cardboard backer is beaded with playful polka dots, whimsical fonts, and quirky flowers. At the bottom, hand-sketched caricatures display between eight and twelve different girls, each wearing the bandeau as a different accessory or style.

While the bandeaus are pretty, the packaging steals the spotlight as it demonstrates the fun women of all kinds can have with the bandeaus. The hand-sketched illustrations are coupled with an alluring hashtag (How do you ❤ to wear? #bohobandeau), tempting prospects with social proof so they will “join the tribe” and make the purchase!

Steal the Spotlight with Free-Form Designs

Packaging design is a great way to glamorize a product and attract consumers’ attention.

Many people will judge a product by its packaging before buying it, and alluring illustrations can spark intrigue in your first-time buyers. Illustrations build a bridge in shared stories, cohesiveness, and collective emotions.

Need ideas? Here’s just a few ways to use illustrations in your packaging:

Illustrations of a product in action
Graphics of vintage cars, bicycles, or clocks
Landscapes representing the culture or heritage of your product
Quirky or interactive coffee sleeves for disposable cups
Varying patterns of labels for products marketed as a set
Pop-open packaging, like boxes that unfold to display a three or four-panel illustration inside
A graphic that weaves the actual product into part of its design (like these white rawhide sticks displayed as teeth in a dog’s mouth)
Illustrations that incorporate the shape of a container into the larger design theme (like this sardine tin, which doubles as a bright yellow bus crammed with fish)
Interactive labels that tell a story, like the “Living Labels” of 19 Crimes (viewers download an app, hover their smart device camera in front of the label, and hear the stories of true criminals come to life as 3D characters recount their side of the story)

Build a Bridge to Your Customers

Your print packaging represents your identity, so ride high in style with illustrated custom labels.

Whether it’s eye-catching boxes, personalized product labels, or hang tags for specials and sales, smart packaging will command attention and make your message sing. Attach your brand to cardboard, glass, fabric, stone, and everything in-between!

Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Creating a Substantial Visual Impact Through Corporate Responsibility Campaigns

In a post-pandemic world, marketers are tasked with a unique balancing act: helping people return to reality while remaining sensitive to the challenges of this era.

Today’s consumers appreciate businesses that prioritize people over products. Research by consumer authority Mintel has shown that as many as 56% of Americans will stop buying from brands they believe are unethical. Additionally, in a global survey, 91% of consumers reported they were likely to switch to a brand that supports a good cause, given similar price and quality.

Corporate responsibility, or cause marketing, occurs when a company’s promotional campaign has a dual purpose of increasing profitability while bettering society. Or, more colloquially: cause marketing occurs when a brand does well by doing good.

Visual campaigns are potent, and they are even more compelling when combined with a social initiative of some sort. Here are three dynamic examples.

Cadbury’s “Donate Your Words” Campaign

In the United Kingdom, 225,000 older people often go a week without speaking to anyone.

During the pronounced isolation of COVID-19, Cadbury chocolates launched an initiative to benefit Age UK, the country’s leading charity dedicated to providing companionship, advice, and support for older individuals.

In a stark visual, Cadbury removed all lettering from the front of its dark purple packaging and replaced it with a blank tag: instead of a price, there was a pledge to talk to an older person. Blank pledge tags were also available for customers who wanted to write personalized pledges. Shoppers could take any display item to the till, but instead of paying money they could pledge to talk to an older person.

Cadbury donated its chocolate and challenged a nation to donate its words.

American Express and Small Business Saturday

Did you know that the original founder of Small Business Saturday was American Express?

Without a non-profit partner, American Express embraced entire communities by encouraging consumers to shop local and support the mom and pop stores in their own neighborhoods (presumably while using an American Express card to do so!).

Launched in 2010, local profits leaped from $14.3 billion in 2014 to $19.8 billion in 2020. Key to this success was visual marketing; to equip local businesses, American Express designed creative pieces like signage, social posts, scavenger hunt maps, recipe sheets, and themed passports to support their “Neighborhood Champions”—men and women that vowed to formally celebrate Small Business Saturday in their areas.

A Meaningful, Memorable Message

Consumers want to see positive change in the world and when your brand can be part of it, the emotional impact of your marketing will ratchet up.

Choose your cause wisely, listen to your audience, and lean in to the power of print marketing to put your message front and center.