Which Specialty Packaging Options Are Right for Your Products?

An overview of the benefits of specialty packaging:

• Transform Your Product into a Showstopper: Specialty packaging captures customers' attention with luxurious textures and eye-catching designs. This tailored approach makes your product stand out like a star in the crowded retail world.
• Unveil the Power of Custom Design: Specialty packaging goes beyond standard containers by incorporating unique folding carton shapes, alternative substrates, advanced printing techniques, and interactive visual elements. It reinforces brand identity and adds perceived value.
• Make a Lasting First Impression: In a saturated marketplace, specialty packaging ensures your product makes a stellar first impression, transforming casual browsers into committed buyers.
• Resonate With Consumers: Specialty packaging serves as a storytelling medium, conveying your brand's values, personality, and mission through design and materials. By employing renewable substrates and creating an unforgettable unboxing experience, you resonate with eco-conscious consumers and elevate your product's perceived value.
• Create Shareable Moments That Build Loyalty: In the age of social media, connected packaging turns the act of opening a product into a shareable event, molding customers into brand ambassadors. 

In the bustling world of retail, your product isn't just another face in the crowd—it's a star waiting for its spotlight. It's the magical wardrobe that dresses your product for success and makes customers do a double-take.

From luxurious textures to eye-catching designs, specialty packaging whispers (and sometimes shouts) "Pick me!" to passing shoppers.

But with so many options available, how do you choose the perfect packaging ensemble for your brand's leading product? Let's unveil the possibilities and find out which specialty packaging options will make your products shine on the shelf stage.

Specialty Packaging Defined

Specialty packaging refers to custom-designed layering solutions that go beyond standard plastic containers and folding cartons. It's tailored to enhance product appeal, protect contents, and differentiate your brand from competitors.

This can include unique shapes, alternative substrates, advanced printing techniques, or interactive visual elements.

Specialty packaging aims to create a memorable unboxing experience, reinforce brand identity, and add perceived value to your products. It's often used for luxury goods, limited editions, gifts, or when your brand wants to make a strong visual impact on store shelves or in e-commerce.

For instance, it’s difficult to overlook this hexagonal prism designed for health and beauty brand Oribe. Its uncommon structure contrasts with more generic rectangular boxes on the shelves, while also encouraging shoppers to pick the product up. 

Benefits of Specialty Packaging

Picture this: You're strolling down a store aisle, surrounded by a sea of products. Suddenly, something catches your eye. Perhaps it’s a boxed product packaged in an unusual structure, defying mundane design conventions. 

Its unique quality intrigues you for a moment longer than any other items on the shelf. That's the power of specialty packaging, and it's a game-changer for brands.

Let's dive into a few reasons why it’s so beneficial. 

Make First Impressions That Last

We all know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but let's be honest—we do it anyway. 

Specialty packaging ensures your product makes a stellar first impression. It's like dressing your product in its Sunday best, every single day. This visual allure can be the difference between a casual browser and a committed buyer.

Stand Out in a Crowded Market

In today's saturated marketplace, blending in is a death sentence for products. Consumers are overwhelmed by the number of choices available. It’s chaotic and stressful walking claustrophobia-inducing retail aisles. 

People want an easy way out of the madness that promises a high-quality product. Specialty packaging is that lifeline.

Whether it's an unusual shape, a tactile texture, or an interactive element, specialty packaging gives your product the edge it needs to outperform the competition.

Tell Your Brand's Story

Every brand has a tale to tell, and specialty packaging is your storytelling medium. It's not just a container; it's your canvas.

Generic packaging often signals blandness or mediocrity. (Though, not always. Straightforward or minimalist packaging can be effective, if deployed properly.)

Through design, materials, and an unforgettable unboxing experience, you can convey your brand's values, personality, and mission. For instance, employing renewable substrates communicates a commitment to sustainability that resonates with the ever-expanding number of eco-conscious consumers. 

Elevate the Perceived Value of Your Products

Let's face it: We're all a bit shallow when it comes to packaging.

A product in premium packaging instantly feels more valuable, whether or not that’s true of the items found inside. Specialty packaging is the difference between a diamond in a velvet box and one in a paper bag.

Higher-quality visual effects and customized folding carton structures indicate greater value to your consumers.

In turn, this can justify higher price points and position your product as a premium offering. 

Create Memorable Experiences for Brand Ambassadors

In the age of social media and online influencers, unboxing videos have become a phenomenon.

Specialty packaging turns the simple act of opening a product into an event worth sharing with friends and social media followers. It's not just about the product anymore; it's about the journey of discovering it.

This shareable moment can turn customers into your strongest brand ambassadors.

Consider this elaborate and elegant boxed set that will lure in any Trekkie. The tactile and luxurious elements invite fans to immerse themselves in the Star Trek universe.

Build Stronger Brand Loyalty

When you create a packaging experience that delights, you're not just selling a product—you're creating a loyal champion. That positive association with a one-of-a-kind packaging design can lead to repeat purchases and greater brand loyalty.

People revel in being singular or uncommon, and purchasing a product with specialty packaging offers them a taste of that. 

It's like giving your customers a gift every time they buy from you.

In essence, specialty packaging can be your brand's secret ingredient. It's the silent salesperson and customer experience enhancer all rolled into one. In a world where products are abundant but attention is scarce, it’s your ticket to standing out and being remembered.

Types of Specialty Packaging Design

When considering which specialty packaging option is right for your products, your printing and packaging partner will likely offer one of the following varieties:

Laminated Small Flute Packaging

Combining strength, lightness, and a premium appearance, it consists of a corrugated cardboard core (the "flute") sandwiched between two flat linerboards. The term "small flute" refers to the size of the wave-like ridges in the corrugated core. Smaller flutes provide a smoother surface and better printability than larger flutes.

Its outer layer is laminated, typically with high-quality paper or a specialty film. This lamination enhances your packaging's appearance and provides additional protection against abrasions or punctures. 

Plus, its smooth laminated surface and upscale appearance make it ideal for high print quality. 

Laminated small flute packaging is often used for luxury goods, cosmetics, electronics, and other products where you require a balance of protection and premium aesthetics.

Setup Boxes

Rigid or setup boxes are premium, pre-assembled packaging solutions that exude luxury and quality.

Unlike standard folding cartons, these rigid boxes are constructed from thick paperboard, wrapped in high-quality materials, and arrive ready to use. They deliver exceptional durability, protecting delicate or valuable items while accommodating exquisite design elements such as foil stamping, debossing/embossing, spot UV printing, or other specialty techniques.

Ideal for high-end electronics, cosmetics, jewelry, and luxury goods, setup boxes transform packaging into a statement piece.

For instance, Our Holiday Box employs foil stamping and embossing to powerful effect.

Other Specialty Packaging Solutions

Flute and setup boxes are the two major categories for specialty packaging, but you can further enhance them with other design features. 

Proliferating since the advent of social media, connected packaging has transformed the consumer experience. By integrating barcodes, URLs, hashtags, and QR codes into packaging design, you can bridge the gap between the physical and the digital. This opens up endless possibilities for delivering immersive experiences that resonate or wow people.

Connected packaging enables you to delight with social media campaigns, augmented reality, additional info or entertaining videos online, exclusive content, and gamification.

Skincare brand Loops, for instance, features a QR code on its packaging with the mysterious invitation “Scan Me for a Prize.” It’s hard to resist the intrigue. 

Don’t overlook sustainability. Younger generations and environmentally conscious consumers are asking for more sustainable packaging materials. They’re even willing to pay more for it. At a minimum, your paperboard should come from responsibly managed forests, as certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).

Implementing other renewable substrate options such as post-consumer recycled paper, hemp- and cotton-based fillers, and casein will set you apart from competitors. 

And be sure to communicate about your green efforts. How else will consumers know your brand’s committed to sustainable packaging design?

Meliora Cleaning Products, for example, wears its environmentalist credentials on its sleeve, integrating plastic-free packaging and an earthy color palette into its design. 

Personalized packaging designs signal high quality and speak directly to consumers. Admit it. You’ve noticed when brands have gotten creative with tailoring packaging. Coca-Cola, for example, puts people’s names on different bottle labels. Similarly, Jones Soda adorns its bottles with candid photos that people submit to the beverage company.

Variable data printing makes this possible, enabling you to customize visual elements on folding cartons cost-effectively with digital techniques. 

Think outside of the box and you’ll be remembered for it. 

Dog food brand Sundays for Dogs used variable data printing to delight consumers with a campaign that included the names of celebrities’ furry friends on the box. 

Use specialty laminates and coatings. These advanced decorative effects dress up your products. While laminates consist of multiple layers of materials bonded together, coatings adhere another layer to your substrate, magnifying its qualities. 

In either case, they provide increased protection, add texture or patterns, and expand your printing repertoire. Popular options include gloss, motion coat, strike-through coating, pearlescence, and tactile styles. 

For example, secondary packaging for soy candlemaker Zum Glow’s votives feature a matte aqueous finish, nodding to its premium quality. 

Creating Specialty Packaging That Resonates With Consumers 

When all the packaging elements come together, from initial ideation to the finished product, you’ll deliver a lasting impression by sending the right message at the right time.

That was the case when Google completed a special drop for its Nest smart home hubs. The tech giant worked with United Service Organizations (USO) to get them to military families with loved ones stationed overseas during the holidays. The children of these families recorded stories into them, and Google then shipped these to the military members for a one-of-a-kind, personal experience.

The box, designed to look like a book, featured a night motif, with dreamlike touches that evoked bedtime stories. Recipients opened it to find pop-up elements, postcards, sticker sheets, booklets, and photo frames.

The “My Storytime” kit was a hit—reflecting specialty packaging possibilities.

With a clever combination of effects and the support of a company that executed multiple printing techniques with precision, Google showcased its charitable efforts, highlighted the breadth of its technology, and elevated its brand with a thoughtful project.

Now, that scenario is unique to a company with the technology and resources of Google, but the lessons remain: By setting goals, getting creative, and working with experienced packaging manufacturers, you, too, can tell your story in an impactful way.

Oliver Inc. is the nation's leading independent supplier of custom paperboard packaging solutions. Contact us today to learn more about which specialty packaging options are the right fit for your premium brand.