MKF2401 Packaging Brief Template

Packaging Brief
MKF2401 Marketing Issues in Package Design
1. Reason for the brief. What does the client want to happen?
Include a summary paragraph, taken from your background research, that:

+ Describes what the problem/opportunity the client is currently facing;
+ Outline any background issues that may impact the problem/opportunity;
Consider:
+ What are the results of the problem/opportunity?

+ What is the impact on customers
Marketing Objectives
2-3 Marketing objectives listed. These should be S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timely)
Packaging Design Objectives
Primary objective
+ List your most important objective
Secondary objectives
+ List 2-3 here
2. Target Market
Designers need to know everything possible about he people their design work is aimed for. Include both a primary and a
secondary target market
.
+ Try to go beyond customer status and demographics - attempt to paint a relevant and evocative picture of their lifestyle
or business and how they shop the category.
+ Who are the decision makers who decide what to buy?
+ What time of day do they shop? Who with? What influences their selection?
+ Who are the users/recommenders who already know your brand and are satisfied customers?
+ What are their demographics and psychographs?
+ What needs or desires will the product product or brand satisfy?
Your Personas, Empathy and Journey maps will help you unpack some of these questions, the answers to which will help you cre-
ate the right connections and simplify your message.
3. What do they currently think about our sector and our brand?
+ What really turns them on/off? Think rationally and emotionally

+ Focus on target perceptions, not reality.
4. What do we want them to think?

+ What is the current perception of the client’s brand?
+ Think about this in terms of the brand positioning and core brand values.
+ What single thought should they take out from our communication (pack design)?
5. What do we want them to do?

+ Enquire, visit, buy, change their behavioiur?
+ Explain what the client wants them to do as a result of the new design. (use more often, buy more regularly, keep
in the fridge, reuse or repurpose?
+ How are consumers supposed to interact with your packaging and product information?
6. What is the single most important proposition?
What is the one motivating benefit - ideally a word, at most a phrase? If a phrase, underline the key words.
+ This may be the same as Q 4 (what do we want them to think), but try hard to go beyond this to give the designer an
inspired thought.
+ Be creative! Have a go at the word or phrase that should enter the consumer’s mind at point of purchase.
+ Think about the ESP - the emotional selling proposition.
7. What is the offer?

+ Is there a special deal for responding now?
+ Note - this doesn’t have to be a new price. It can be Brand X now produces product Y. If this is what consumers have
been looking for then this will be compelling enough.
+ If there is no offer, leave out this section.
8. Mandatories
+ What are the absolutely must-haves in the design? Eg Materials, logos, colours, copy required by law etc
+ Rank these in priority order. Eg Brand, Variant (eg with lime), size, special features, country of origin etc
+ Is there a maximum number of colours?
+ Mandatories can be completed in a table.
9. Creative guidelines
+ Whilst the mandatories are things that MUST be in the design, the creative guidelines are points that would be nice to
include.
+ Think about this section in terms of the results of a visual audit of key competitor’s products.
+ These might include desired market perceptions, emotional attributes and the product’s personality.
10. Deliverables and Timings

+ Consider different phrases needed. For example comprehensive visual audit; develop a maximum of x initial
concepts; develop a maximum of x creative design concepts with finished colour that meet the
business/design objectives; test all concepts with the target audience; product launch etc
+ Against each of your stages put a date - day/month/year
11. Restrictions
+ High, medium or low budget and why
+ Any photograhy/illustration?
+ Simple/involved/high impact pack design?
12. Background
Whilst this is at the end of the design brief, it is the first place you start as marketers and brand managers - with research. You want
to build up as deep an understanding of the industry, category, competitors and brand as possible.
+ Conduct a visual audit of the category your package will be going into, the key competitors and the brand itself
(if you’re doing a brand extension)
+ If you are doing a New to the World brand, you’ll still need to understand the major competitors in the category
you want to enter. Conduct a visual audit of key competitors products, packaging and collateral materials.
What visual communication is your target audience receiving on a regular basis from your key competitors.
( In practice, examples of visual communication and so forth are placed in the appendix). You may want to consider
this is relation to ‘creative guidelines’.
+ Are there many brands competiting in the category? If so, there must be a great deal of visual clutter and that means
the design must be visually dominant, distinctive and different from all of these competitors. Be as specific
and detailed as possible.
+ We looked at visual audits in our week 4 online activities. Meyers and Lubliner also ask some key questions
about product category analysis and packaging analysis in our week 4 chapter readings and videos.
I encourage you to revisit these to assist with your analysis.
+ It’s important to understand the trends and drivers in the key category or industry you are going to go into.
What has happened in that category/industry? What significant trends are occuring now in that category?
+ How might these trends influence possible design directions or solutions? Any particular opportunities?
12. Background
+ Competitor analysis.
If you’re doing a brand extension
+ What is the company’s brand history (if applicable) and core values?
+ What is the company’s brand strategy and positioning?
+ How would you sum up the brand’s personality?
+ What is the company’s current business strategy? You could also tie this into the reason for the brief
If you’re doing a new to the world brand:
+ What is your brand story (if applicable)

+ What is your brand positioning, values and personality?
+ What is your brand name
Retail information
+ Which stores are your product and its package being sold in?
+ Bricks and mortar only? Online only? A combination of bricks and mortar and online?
SWOT
+ It’s a good idea to bring the key points of your background research together into a SWOT table to help you
recognise and articulate the gap. This then links back to Q1.
Reference list
Appendix (if applicable)

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Packaging Brief

MKF2401 Marketing Issues in Package Design

Include a summary paragraph, taken from your background research, that:

+ What are the results of the problem/opportunity?

Packaging Design Objectives

+ What really turns them on/off? Think rationally and emotionally

4. What do we want them to think?

5. What do we want them to do?

7. What is the offer?

10. Deliverables and Timings

If you’re doing a brand extension

If you’re doing a new to the world brand:

+ What is your brand story (if applicable)

Appendix (if applicable)

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