“What works here, won’t necessarily work elsewhere.”
Have you ever seen a product with a different packaging across two different countries?
In the previous post, we talked about how packages can affect the consumers’ senses and their purchasing decisions. However, it is even more important to take into consideration the consumers’ cultures when designing a package. Some packages tend to work in some countries but fail miserably in others. So, what could be the reason behind this?
When designing a package, it is important to conform to the locals’ needs and preferences. This also goes to the global brands. For brands, going by a global standard poses them a lot of challenges and problems. Usually, when expanding abroad, brands customise their products’ packages according to the local tastes while keeping the brand’s identity prominent.
Thus, this suggests integrating labels or slogans that are tailored to the brand’s target markets into their global products. All of this can be summed up in the sense that brands are going “glocal” instead of global.
By adhering to the cultural norms, brands tend to add extra features to the global product’s standard. It might use the same shape of the product and logo in order to establish familiarity and increase brand’s recognition. However, it might change the language of the writing, the font style, the size, or even the colours of the product’s package to suit local tastes.
In some countries, locals might have a certain preference for a colour over the other. Also, a group of people belonging to a certain age group could prefer a colour palette over the other. For example, people of old age might tend to go for a colour palette that is different from the younger group.
Likewise, in some countries, locals are more affected by informative labels put on the products. In religious countries, it might be important to add the term “Halal” to the sealing of a product. In health conscious countries, it could be adequate to add “Sugar Free” or “Fat Free” on the seal for instance.
Keeping your consumers’ and your target market’s varied cultural backgrounds at the top of your mind when expanding is essential. It is important for a brand to embrace different ideologies and perspectives as well as to demonstrate openness to its consumers.
In order to stand out, it has become necessary for brands to “glocal” and to encompass their target markets’ religion, social habits, and other social values and artefacts across their various touch points.
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