Using Custom Folding Cartons to Promote Your Brand

It’s helpful to think of your brand as the emotions you evoke for consumers.

Wherever they encounter you, whether in a retail store, on a website, or social media, each point of contact is a chance to remind them who you are and what you mean to them.

These are opportunities to tell your story—and how they can be part of it.

Now, brand reputation is fragile. Taking years to build, it can be thoroughly deflated within a few weeks. Building brand identity requires consistency and discipline, to the point that consumers can easily recognize your brand by merely the color, font style, or type of imagery.

When all three are brought together in your packaging materials—and reinforced over an extended period of time—you’re able to clearly communicate your values, company history, and what makes your brand unique. This is especially true of folding cartons.

Here are several things to consider when using custom folding cartons to promote your brand.

Reinforce Brand Messaging

Choosing the right packaging materials or designs can contribute additional value to your products. Attention-grabbing decorative effects on folding cartons invite consumers to further consider the product inside or connect your brand to specific values, such as sustainability, for instance.

If environmental stewardship is a core value of your brand, custom folding carton designs open you up to a wide range of eco-friendly packaging materials. From responsibly sourced timber to sustainable alternatives such as hemp- and cotton-filler paperboard, selecting the right substrate will further reinforce your brand’s green credentials. 

Just be sure to communicate this by including the right certification symbols and messaging to ensure consumers understand the ways your brand invests in eco-conscious technologies. Including a brief line of text to the effect of “This packaging is derived from sustainably sourced lumber,” goes a long way toward telling your sustainability story. 

Custom boxes offer a wide range of printing capabilities.

Debossing and embossing create depth, enabling your brand to quite literally stand out among the others. Sturdy boxes can imply importance or a certain gravitas. Use of earthy tones and textured materials might reflect your company’s eco-consciousness.

Luxury food brands often employ special coatings including metallic-looking finishes, such as silver and gold, to signal their refined quality. This typically requires foil stamping or cold foil, which bring a metallic shine to packaging.

You’ll see this aesthetic with health and beauty brands, as well.

In the case of the cannabis industry, many are leaning into the more natural aspects of the product, using eco-friendly packaging materials. For example, Inhale Exhale employs customized folding cartons to give their cannabis products a high-end aesthetic that contrasts with brands clinging to the so-called “stoner look.”

The decorative elements in beauty product packaging tend to align with notions of refinement and exclusivity. Their posh or chic folding carton designs suggest your brand is informed about consumers’ lifestyles. It’s a personal touch that says, “We understand you.”

There are many factors to consider, obviously. But how does a company approach custom folding cartons specifically for a promotional product? It’s reasonable to worry that personalizing or temporarily modifying packaging to fit a promotion could compromise the integrity of a brand. It runs the risk of confusing customers or diluting your visual narrative.

However, if done right, it can strengthen your brand.

Build Brand Affinity With Personalized Folding Cartons

Variable data printing is a powerful avenue to ponder for custom folding cartons. Historically expensive and less efficient, this process makes more sense now with recent technological innovations—enabling your company to produce personalized messaging on packaging materials.

Variable data printing relies on digital files to customize designs, rather than physical plates endemic to traditional printing, which can be costly and cumbersome to switch out. This makes it a viable option for brands looking to capitalize on the benefits of personalization.

For example, consider what Sundays for Dogs achieved by working with Oliver to customize folding cartons.

A company that produces healthy dog food, Sundays for Dogs distributed samples to more than 400 celebrities utilizing custom boxes featuring their social media handles and images of their dogs. These curated social media photos also included personalized brand labels. For instance, “Sundays for Dogs” became “Sundays for Baxter.”

By modifying their branding for this specialty promotion, the campaign created a lot of energy around Sundays for Dogs, despite temporarily altering their branding. Embracing the power of custom folding cartons helped them grow their market share and capture the attention of customers.

It fostered a deeper connection between consumers and Sundays for Dogs. 

A feat perhaps only achievable by an established company, this campaign succeeds by connecting its brand with the strong affinity we have toward our pets.

Customize Packaging With a Multi-Layered Experience

Custom packaging can deliver a multi-layered experience, as well.

Including printed marketing collateral and packaging inserts gives consumers something tangible to hold onto for a while. This can be a sticker they can affix to their daily accessories (such as a laptop), or flyers that are likely to sit on their counters as reminders of their experiences with your brand.

The boundaries between physical packaging and the digital world are becoming increasingly blurred.

Referred to as connected packaging, this custom folding carton design approach employs QR codes, hashtags, barcodes, and URLs to encourage further interaction with brands online or through mobile apps. 

The more time spent engaging with your product, even its packaging, the stronger their affinity to your brand will be. Consider integrating online videos, instructional websites, social media campaigns, or games into the overall packaging experience. For instance, your sporting equipment might direct consumers to a mobile app designed to help them track fitness goals or learn new exercise routines. 

Cutting-edge packaging technology also includes augmented reality. Yes, that’s the sort of high-tech now available with custom folding carton packaging design. 

Envision, for instance, consumers having the ability to scan their mobile phone over your product’s packaging, revealing a 3D visual of the packaging and how it’s sustainably sourced and designed. Or maybe it even conjures up an interior view of how your product is put together before being boxed.

Have fun with it. Find ways to delight and surprise your customers. 

Partner With an Experienced Custom Folding Carton Supplier

It’s easy to see why more companies are trending toward personalized marketing and customized packaging. This opens up many possibilities to promote your brand in a way that suits your company’s narrative, values, and uniqueness.

Plus, it’s a fun way for consumers to engage with your brand.

Ultimately, it helps to collaborate with a printing and packaging partner with extensive experience designing custom folding cartons. Oliver Inc. has been doing this for several decades, across many commercial industries. Powered by multiple facilities across the United States, Oliver not only has the eye for attention-grabbing design, but the ability to produce custom folding cartons at a turnaround rate unrivaled.

Throw in Oliver’s deep and sincere commitment to customer service, and you can expect a seamless printing experience that results in custom packaging consumers won’t soon forget.

Oliver Inc. is the nation's leading independent supplier of custom paperboard packaging solutions. Our advanced printing technology and steadfast commitment to excellence will elevate your next custom folding carton design. Contact us today to learn more.