MARKETING STRATEGY

WHY PACKAGING IS A BILLBOARD         

Claudia Jayatilleke explains why packaging is a long-term advertisement

Every product that a manufacturer makes has to leave the factory eventually and stand somewhere on its own – on a shelf, in a bag, on a kitchen counter, in the hand of someone standing on a crowded street and so on. 

At such points, there’s no salesperson, advertisement or jingle playing in the background. There’s only the packaging, which is responsible for advertising. It’s a billboard with a message that travels to every customer who buys the product.

A billboard on the highway is planned with intense care. Copy is tight, the colours are eye-catching when speeding past at 70 kilometres an hour and there’s an easy to read message. 

Packaging deserves the same discipline; because unlike a billboard on a highway that’s only seen very briefly in passing, a package sits in the shopper’s hand or bag, or on the kitchen counter, for much longer than that – and it gets far more exposure than almost any other marketing surface. 

The most common issue is clutter as many local packages try to say everything at once. There’s a burst promising extra value, a sticker announcing a promotion, the brand name and a tag line in different fonts, nutritional claims wherever there’s space… and an image of the product crammed into whatever space is left. 

As nothing tells the eye where to look first, the result is a package that shouts many things quietly rather than saying one thing loudly. When everything is emphasised, nothing is.

This is a failure of strategy as packaging is frequently treated as the last step in getting a product to market – something to finalise quickly after the product, pricing and distribution are sorted out. 

And it’s handed to whoever is available, built around whatever stock boxes or wrappers are cheapest and is rarely revisited unless a competitor does something visibly different. Few businesses ask what the packaging is actually supposed to do for the brand beyond accommodating the product.

The deeper problem is that attention itself has become a scarce resource and Sri Lankan packaging habits haven’t caught up to that reality. 

A shopper walking down a supermarket aisle is exposed to dozens of products within a few seconds and rarely reads a label carefully. The brain is scanning for shape, colour and a flicker of recognition, and it makes a decision before conscious thought even catches up.

This is why clean, intentional design is needed even though the crowded pack technically contains more information. A package that commits to a strong colour, clear symbol and confident piece of typography is far more likely to register in that half a second glance than a package trying to cram in five separate claims. 

Packaging that looks good and feels considered when someone is using, pouring from, opening or carrying it becomes part of the experience; it’s what turns a first time buyer into a repeat customer. 

And here’s the part that most enterprises underestimate entirely: packaging retains advertising long after the purchase when someone buys a bag of chips, a bottle of juice or a packet of biscuits, and then carries it home on a bus or leaves it on an office desk. 

Other people see that package in passing – without even meaning to look at it. They’re not being sold to in any deliberate way; but their brains register the colour, shape and brand mark. 

This is subconscious brand building at a scale that most Sri Lankan companies never account for in their marketing budgets because they’re not paying for it. The packaging is doing it free – or would be, if it was designed with that plan in mind.

Packages try to say everything at once

This is precisely why packaging should be treated with the same seriousness as a television advertisement or billboard. It’s reaching every single customer repeatedly and countless bystanders too. 

A company that ignores this is essentially leaving free advertising space blank.

One of the simplest highest leverage places for local companies to begin is colour theory. Colour is processed by the brain faster than text, logos and almost anything else there is on a package. A distinct, consistently used colour becomes shorthand for a brand. 

Consider how instantly certain colours are associated with particular brands purely because they have been used consistently over the years. 

Alongside colour, the same discipline needs to apply to hierarchy where there’s a deliberate decision made about what the eye should see first, second and third – and the need for restraint, which is the willingness to leave empty space instead of filling every millimetre with another claim or sticker.

Packaging will always be a billboard, whether or not a company treats it as one. The only real choice is whether that billboard is designed on purpose or left to happen by accident.