Ruediger Goetz, managing director of the brand and design agency Peter Schmidt Group, explains why packaging design can make brands stronger in today's digitalized world.

During the pandemic, we have digitalized our lives at a rapid pace. But Ruediger Goetz, managing director of the brand and design agency Peter Schmidt Group, states: Brands risk losing sight of the potential of multi-sensory communication. They are overlooking the power of packaging.

Things we used to only imagine are now reality. After decades of becoming accustomed to working face-to-face, the coronavirus pandemic taught us virtually overnight than we can connect with each other conveniently onscreen. We met our colleagues in video conferences, and at Christmas time we showed our parents how Skype works. We watched online streams of sports and cultural events, and tried having our groceries delivered instead of standing in line at the supermarket. In short: jobs, leisure time, our entire lives work astonishingly well remotely! Had anyone predicted it two years ago, we wouldn't have believed it.

But for all the euphoria, we are increasingly sensing a subtle restlessness. For years we did everything we could to create as many digital brand experiences as possible – and now it's precisely these that we are getting tired of. It's like the old saying: The dose makes the poison. We feel like we're long overdue a digital detox.

The sunny possibilities of the digital age cast some dark shadows

Don't get me wrong: I have tremendous respect for the speed with which companies have successfully adapted their business processes to digital channels – and digital tools have afforded us at least a modicum of human interaction. Just imagine the pandemic had hit us twenty years earlier! We may be enthusiastic about the benefits of the digital age, but a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted. Already the average user spends about four hours a day sitting in front of a screen – and is predominantly exposed to visual stimuli. We are constantly absorbing new information, and thereby losing our ability to concentrate. For example, we decide within a few seconds of hearing a song whether to keep scrolling or continue listening. And if you want to collect a lot of streaming clicks, your clip shouldn't be more than three minutes long these days.

Some studies have examined the negative effects of the fact that parents often push their strollers with at least one eye on their smartphone. And nowadays everyone knows that social networks feed us little micro-rewards from our filter bubble. They're always giving us sugar – and deep down, they know very well that too much of it is bad for us. When even the tech giants of Silicon Valley prescribe restrictive use of digital media for their children, it's deeply revealing.

What does all this have to do with brands? Astonishingly much – because brand work is also about building intensive and stable emotional connections, and the best way to do that is with multi-sensual experiences. The more stimuli a brand delivers, the stronger it is anchored in the human brain. For example, when you think of Coca-Cola, you probably not only have the taste of the product on your tongue, but a multifaceted image in your mind's eye. You can recall the logo, the colors, probably the shape of the bottle and the way it feels in your hand.

Multi-sensory experience: The brand identity of Douglas is reflected not just in the logo, but in products and packaging.

Packaging is a powerful tool for multi-sensual perception

But when we, in our digitalized culture, cut out the haptic, olfactory and kinesthetic stimuli, we are eliminating multi-sensory experiences – which inevitably comes at the expense of brand strength. Brands we encounter only virtually are able to burn themselves into our memory less effectively than those we can experience with all our senses. They attempt to compensate for this disadvantage by increasing the frequency of their digital impressions. It's usually moderately effective at best, and nearly always expensive.

So brands must use digital technology – but they need to develop a new sensitivity in the way they use them. They must recognize and understand consumers' feelings, motivations, and personalities, and translate that understanding into concrete actions. They must show empathy in order to gain relevance.

That's where packaging can do more than you might expect at first glance. After all, it's not just a protective covering and a surface for communicating messages, it's ultimately one of the ways brands can set digital touchpoints and create a variety of sensory perceptions. The packaging can be experienced in its materiality, perceived kinesthetically. Opening it can become an experience that generates aromas, maybe even release a smell that makes you want to use the product. So if the medium of packaging didn't exist – it would have to be invented right now.

Empathic design requires a new way of thinking about agency processes

One of the ways we experience the value of packaging in our agency is through our work with Nivea – a brand we have been advising since the beginning of this year. Strictly speaking, Nivea is already playing in a similar league to that of the aforementioned Coca-Cola. Nivea products have a characteristic smell and specific qualities, but people also know what the brand looks like. A blue circle, a letter cropped out from the logo – that's all people need to identify the brand. At the same time Nivea has to remain empathic and appeal to diverse target groups and their needs. Because the brand is present in diverse cultural circles all over the world, with fundamentally different ideas about beauty and care. There are also many product series and special editions. The packaging feels at home everywhere, but at the same time always remains true to the brand.

Typically German – from a Japanese point of view: The packaging for the Japanese confectionary maker Juchheim

The packaging we are developing for Juchheim – one of Japan's leading confectionary chains, founded about a hundred years ago by an emigrated German confectioner – is empathic in a different way. Juchheim consciously sought out a German agency partner and commissioned Peter Schmidt Group with the task of translating the brand's origin for a Japanese audience. That's why our designs are "typically German" – in just the way Japanese customers would interpret them. So we get a feel for Japanese visualities and ways of thinking, then look at Germany from this perspective.

In the design process, this kind of empathy requires a high degree of understanding about target groups and customer processes. As a result, we have structured our entire way of working around enabling brands to act empathically. We use implicit testing procedures to determine the "emotional drivers" that motivate the various target groups to choose a given brand when making their purchase decisions. We uncover emotions and can use the associated codes to precisely address them. This involves not only visual design, but all sensory perceptions, as well as stories that people associate with certain values. And we make sure empathy is also lived out in the design process. That starts with every employee getting to know the customer and the products – which may sound banal, but shockingly often remains an unfulfilled aspiration in practice. And it doesn't stop there: Some of our employees develop their own products, where they have to deal with the challenges of production processes and supply chains. These efforts have resulted in work like our "Grace of Waste" series, where we give discarded waste a second life through upcycling.

In-house development: With the products in the "Grace of Waste" series, colleagues gain valuable experience with materials and production processes.

In this project, colleagues start out with high standards for sustainability and esthetics – and experience how difficult it is to achieve both. These insights, in turn, are helpful in the work we do for our clients, because now we know which screws to turn and which levers to apply – enabling us to advise our clients more objectively, and ultimately inspire them by making empathic solutions possible.

More about Ruediger Goetz, managing director of Peter Schmidt Group

Prof. Ruediger Goetz is Managing Director of the Peter Schmidt Group, Germany's top-selling brand and design agency and part of BBDO Group. Ruediger is considered one of the most renowned designers in Germany. His work proves the claim to develop communicatively convincing rather than only formally aesthetic design. Goetz is a member of Art Directors Club Germany, a professor at the Academy of Fashion & Design (AMD) and RheinMain University and an active award juror.

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