Based on our previous blogs such as packaging design trends or how poor packaging affects your brand, it should be understood that packaging plays a pivotal role, both for branding and marketing sake. In most cases, it’s the first point of contact a consumer has with a brand. Packaging is not just about protecting or containing the product. Your packaging will act as your brand’s first impression, and as everyone should understand, first impressions are important in establishing brand trust, recall and loyalty. That being said, what can help make your packaging stand out and urge sales? Festive or seasonal packaging!
Of course, festive packaging can’t necessarily be a year-long thing. It has to be relevant to the current festive seasons or celebrations. Let’s dive into how exactly festive packaging influences consumer buying behaviour and how it works in your brand’s favour!
Source: Freepik
The Psychology Behind Festive Packaging’s Influence
Whether it be religious festivities or annual celebrations, these festive times of the year always evoke positive emotions or nostalgia for those celebrating them, consumers tend to feel a little sentimental during these periods. Festive packaging taps into that psychological part in consumers. Some even go as far as collecting packaging that incorporates significant designs that resonate with them. In addition to that, festive packaging gives your product a competitive edge, allowing it to stand out among regular packaging, which already helps catch the consumer’s eye.
Furthermore, when brands utilise colours well, they further act as a powerful tool to evoke emotions and resonate with their target audience. As most people know, each festive season or cultural celebration has its own primary colours. For instance, green is well known to be tied to Hari Raya, or Eid Aidilfitri. This colour is significant to the celebration because it symbolises renewal, growth and harmony. The same concept goes for Chinese New Year and the colour red. Red signifies good luck and happiness, creating a culturally rich and auspicious atmosphere during the celebration.
Pink for Valentine’s Day to signify love, gold and purple for Deepavali to symbolise joy, prosperity, and the victory of light over darkness. All these colours evoke a sense of authenticity and triggers a deeper connection with consumers, making the product part of the joyous occasion.
If you want to know more about colour psychology and how powerful it is for your brand, read our blog about it here!
On top of the positive emotions, festive packaging implies that it’s available for a limited time. Therefore, on top of the market differentiation, this creates a sense of urgency in consumers, influencing them to purchase based on the thought that it’s going to be gone after the season ends. Plus, if you’re smart with your marketing strategies, you can start marketing these festive items before its release to evoke excitement and anticipation for the product.
Tapping into the positive psychological effects can help consumers to remember your brand, purchase your products and even repurchase it or anticipate the next festive item. Thus, it contributes to your brand awareness, brand recognition and recall and brand trust and loyalty.
Influence on Brand Perception and Recognition
Consumers love to see brands that care. Coming up with festive packaging or items that are catered to the season can help not only strengthen your brand identity but also boost your perceived value. This builds a connection between the brand and the holiday season and therefore connects the brand with its target audience, especially when you constantly adapt to current festivities. Thanks to the uniqueness of the festive packaging, consumers get the chance to notice your brand, creating a lasting first impression that, in the end, increases your brand recognition which can lead to repurchasing.
Impact on Purchase Decisions
Based on what we’ve already delved into, the unique and eye-catching festive packaging among a sea of regular packaging combined with the nostalgic and sentimental effects it has on consumers, it creates the perfect item that consumers are interested in purchasing. The limited-time packaging evokes urgency as well as triggers impulse-buying. Especially when you turn your products into gift sets or family-sized, it encourages them to get it for the purpose of the festivities for their loved ones thanks to the gift-giving culture during holidays. When it has become part of the festivity as well as given as a gift, this expands brand awareness, encourages brand trust or reliability as well as strengthens the relationship between the brand and consumers.
Marketing Strategies
So many brands have successfully leveraged festive packaging to boost sales or enhance brand visibility. They’ve strategically planned, built anticipation and came up with festive packaging that is simply a must-buy, whether it be family sets, gift sets, or simply limited-edition sets that are tasteful and resonate with the current festivities. For this to be possible, planning should be done 3-4 months ahead and executed in time for marketing collaterals and to be placed in stores. As a few examples, let’s take a look at Coca-Cola, Lush, KitKat, and Cadbury as examples of brands that made the best of festivities:
Source: Coca-Cola MY – CNY 2024
Source: Lush UK – Valentine’s Gift Set
Source: KL Foodie – 2023 Raya Collection
Source: @pirateosgourmet on Instagram – Christmas Gift Set & Advent Calendar
Sustainable Festive Packaging and Consumer Preference
Nowadays, as environmental awareness grows, consumers are starting to care more about whether packaging is sustainable or eco-friendly or not. They’re not fans of packaging that are wasteful or impractical anymore. They prefer packaging that is reusable, recyclable, or simply refillable. Whether your brand is famous or not, properly implementing sustainable innovations show how your brand cares for the environment as well, resonating with your consumers and building brand trust. In terms of festive packaging, brands could innovate packaging or gift sets that can be repurposed or simply collected as a memorable item. A good example of this is Starbuck’s Mid-Autumn Festival gift set. They made it so that consumers can reuse the packaging for other purposes.
Consumers are more likely to purchase your products when they’re aligned with their preferences and beliefs. This is why building a strong brand-consumer relationship is so important.
Source: Starbucks MY – 2023 Mid-Autumn Festival
Final Say
In a nutshell, festive packaging and good packaging in general plays an important part in making sure that your brand is visible, reliable and influences consumer buying behaviour. Since it acts as the first impression, it decides whether a consumer reaches for your brand or walks past it. Nonetheless, if you’re having trouble coming up with packaging that resonates with your consumers and any festivities, reach out to us at CR8 Consultancy! Leave it to our seasoned designers paired with branding experts and professional digital marketers, your brand will be in good hands for any future festivities.
If you’d like to further deep-dive into this topic and better understand it, you can also download our e-book on How to Be Stunning In The Market With Seasonal Packaging for free!
Start standing out on the shelves with attractive packaging today. Schedule a FREE 1-hour consultation with us now!
