I would like all manufacturers to reconsider their total advertising spend in light of an underutilised but highly effective channel that is packaging!
Think about it. Packaging communicates:
•	in-store, on the shelf as shoppers pass by
•	to users when they take it home
•	when it’s used straight from the pack
Food and Beverages
When Nestle launched its “Compass” way back in 2005, most other food manufacturers were keeping things simple. Some had colour codes like traffic lights, while others had five or seven bullets on front of pack that showed the ingredient breakdown. Today, purchasers check far more details on labels in-store before buying. Unfortunately with such demands for so much information on pack, there is little room for anything else. That is why manufacturers are getting creative with their packaging.

Smart Packaging
Smart packaging, including NFC (near field communic¬ation) tags, transforms conventional packaging into a digital communication channel with customers. Not only does it transmit information at the point of sale, but also after purchase in the home, with such benefits as refill reminders, freshness alerts or usage tips.
Smart packaging works by tapping on the pack with your smartphone, to receive information about the product, usage suggestions, sourcing and ingredients. This brings an intimacy with the customer that will differentiate the brand and also guarantees authenticity.
Attractive Packaging
Amongst numerous pack trends the importance of appeal, especially online, is important. Packs need to stand out from competition in some way.
One additional benefit of unusual or attractive packs is their “buzz” value. 
Personalised Packaging
People can’t get enough of personalisation like on Coke bottles, but it’s not really “personal” since so many people have the same name around the world.
Heinz offered their soup range with a “Get well soon … ” message. It worked for a number of reasons. It included a donation to charity; it communicated online rather than on TV, and allowed fans to vote for their favourite soup
One company that has had less success with its own attempts to copy Coke is Nestle. They proposed a pop-up “KitKat Chocolatory” in London’s Westfield shopping mall after their success in Japan. However, Nestle made a number of basic mistakes:
•	The UK is not Japan. KitKat is a cult brand there and has been for years, especially for gifting.
•	The process was digitalised, so people didn’t get the chance to make nor even see the bar being made for them – unless they hung around for an hour or so.
•	Purchasers had to wait (at least) 90 minutes before their personalised bar was ready.
•	The “experience” added up to a few moments using a touchscreen; neither personal nor very exciting.
•	It cost seven pounds! 
I suggest Nestle learn from how Pret a Manger did popup retail brilliantly. 
Returning to the topic of packaging, the change in retail, means that packs too have a new role to play. They can be a free communication channel too.

C3Centricity

The Free Communication Channel that is Packaging

Now is the time to review your plans for next year and decide the very best strategies and tactics for meeting them. Let’s take a look at each of your possible objectives and see how best to meet them.
 
Higher Growth
There are only three ways to grow your sales:
1.	Get more people to buy
2.	Get people to buy more
3.	Get people to buy more frequently
What you may never have noticed before is that all three approaches include the word “people.” And it is only by understanding them better than you do today, that you will be able to grow your business tomorrow.
It is now well documented that it is easier to increase sales amongst your current customers than it is to go out and attract news customers to buy. To quote a comment in the book Marketing Metrics, the probability of selling to an existing customer is up to 14 times higher than the probability of selling to a new customer.
Therefore it’s clear that your current customers are worth far more to you than any new potential customers are today.
Whichever strategy you use to grow your business, it involves knowing your customers deeply. Therefore that is what you need to work on first. To do this, start by collecting everything you know about them and then store all this knowledge and information as a descriptive and visual persona. (You are welcome to download our 4W™ Template if you don’t already have one) 

Then get out and meet as many of your customers as possible in person. This could be by serving behind the counter if you have a retail outlet. Or attending market research interviews, getting to know your customers by meeting them in their house or going shopping with them.

Increased Profitability
Profit comes from selling your product or service at a higher price than it costs you to make. There are two important things to consider in addition to the category pricing range:
1.	What value do your customers place on your offer?
2.	What is your customer’s lifetime value?

Value-based pricing requires an understanding of what your customers value. Identify not only the basic requirements customers are looking for in a category, but the small things they value in addition. 

Does your product or service offer a competitive advantage beyond price? If not read “How do people recognise brands?” for inspiration.

The second area of pricing to review is your customers’ lifetime value.
Sometimes a product can be sold at a price that is not at all or only slightly profitable. Think coffee capsules, razor blades, printer cartridges and game stations. In most of these cases once you have bought the item, you can only continue to use it by buying the same branded elements, usually at highly exaggerated prices.
A further cost associated with this model that customers must consider, is the cost of switching. Here the cost is not so much monetary, as time and energy to make the change. 

The final cost for customers in switching in the psychological cost of doing so. After a certain time, customers are invested in their choice and switching becomes harder to justify. They don’t want to admit – even to themselves – that they made a poor choice.

Pricing isn’t just about cost for the manufacturer, it’s also about the cost and value to the customer that really matters.

More Successful Innovation
There are many articles here on innovation, such as “A Customer-First Approach to Successful Innovation” and “Improving Ideation, Insight & Innovation: How to Prevent Further Costly Failures.” 

What does your innovation process look like? Is it a funnel or a virtuous circle that starts and ends with customer understanding. Unless you have moved to the latter, your innovations are almost certainly not as successful as they could be.
At the end of the day, growing your business more profitably and beating the competition, is simply about knowing your customers deeply, often times better they even know themselves!

C3Centricity Podcasts

How to Beat the Competition in 2018

Although there is no magic bullet to transform your business into a successful powerhouse, there are similarities amongst those that grow more profitably. And what they have in common is the process steps of their business projects. 
1. A Support Team
No-one ever changed a company, let alone its culture, by working alone. Therefore start by gathering together a group of like-minded people as your support team.
If you are a solopreneur, this is even more important, if not vital to your success. You must have a sounding board to share ideas and get differing perspectives. Social media and Facebook groups are great for daily connections, but nothing beats the more intimate face-to-face discussions a personal meeting provides. 
If you work in a corporation, no matter its size, choosing the right group of team members will ensure that you have support to bring about the required improvements. Internal change is more a cultural than a process challenge so a team made up of members across the different departments will provide you with the necessary support.
2. A Plan
Most of us don’t like planning, we like action! But it is a necessary evil, even vital, for success. The content of a plan will obviously depend upon the objectives, but at a minimum, it should include details about:
•	The problem
•	The objectives and desired outcome / changes
•	Team members and their needed experience
•	Others who need to be involved and / or informed
•	The suggested approach
•	The information needed in order to make the change
•	External support needed, if any, and why
•	Time and budget resources available
•	Any barriers or risks that could impact or restrict implementation

3. Management Support
Project success is always dependent upon gaining buy-in in one way or another, whether from management, key stakeholders or even the whole organisation.
This will only be possible if the project is seen as a company rather than a departmental or individual initiative. That is why all the components of the plan, as detailed above, are so important.
4. A Project Management System
In line with creating a plan, you must have a way to identify milestones & follow project progression. Therefore you need some sort of system to record & share progress with everyone.
The platform you use can be as simple or as complex as you like, but should be appropriate for the complexity of the project itself. Whatever you choose, it should be easily accessible, visual, informative, user friendly and as intuitive as possible. If it isn’t, it won’t get used, it’s as simple as that! 
5. Launch Following
Since most projects will have an end or launch date when it goes live, it is a good idea to make everyone aware of it. A celebration of some sort is useful for gaining both awareness and excitement around the project launch. 
To gain maximum awareness and support it needs to be followed up with further occasions to celebrate additional milestones such as meeting different targets for adoption, distribution etc.
6. Best-Practice Improvements
As well as regular follow-up events, it is important to frequently track the current situation of the project roll-out. This ensures that any deviation from the plan is quickly identified and corrective actions taken.
This helps to improve the original plan by pinpointing any areas that need additional steps or enhancements. It will also guarantee continued involvement by everyone since they will see that they have the chance to suggest changes.
7. Documentation
As with planning, documentation during and especially after the project is completed will align everyone behind it. By opening each step to commentary and even criticism ensures greater buy-in but also increases the chance of an optimised execution. This doesn’t mean that you have to accept every suggestion and constantly make changes; that would spell disaster for any project. But being open to listening to ideas ensures you & the team don’t miss any points which were not at first known.

7 Essential Steps To Successful Business Projects

Exponentially Grow your Business through better Customer Understanding & Engagement

The Customer-First Global Strategist