Product Startup Podcast Episode 230: Product Packaging Strategy

00:00:00 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn best practices around the importance of good product packaging from a 30-year veteran in the package design industry.

00:00:07 Kevin Mako: This is the Product Startup Podcast, a show to learn from top leaders in hardware product development, prototyping, manufacturing, product selling, and everything in between. Hosted by Kevin Mako, the leading expert on product development for hardware startups.

00:00:22 Kevin Mako: Welcome back everyone. I'm very excited to introduce Elizabeth Corbett to the show. Elizabeth is president of Enterprise Group at AE Global, an international package design and manufacturing company. She's also been in the packaging and branding industry for almost 30

00:00:35 Kevin Mako: years working with many global brands. Today, Elizabeth will share valuable knowledge from inventor startups and small manufacturers on why new product package design is so important, best practices for designing great packaging, and how to ensure you leverage your packaging

00:00:47 Kevin Mako: to grow your new hardware product brand successfully. Now, on to the episode. This show is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups,

00:01:01 Kevin Mako: small manufacturers, and inventors. Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. Now, onto the episode!

00:01:11 Kevin Mako: Hey Elizabeth, welcome to the show!

00:01:12 Elizabeth Corbett: Thank you!

00:01:13 Kevin Mako: We're looking forward today to talk to you about packaging. Packaging, why packaging is important, even if you're a new hardware startup and this is your first product that you're launching to market, even if you are just starting with online sales.

00:01:25 Kevin Mako: Packaging can do a lot for a new and emerging brand, especially with all the different opportunities that packaging presents. And who better to talk to you than Elizabeth Corbett today on the show from a hundred million

00:01:35 Kevin Mako: dollar packaging company works with major brands all over the world. Elizabeth has over 30 years of experience in doing package design, working with many many different brands that are doing mass manufactured physical consumer products.

00:01:48 Kevin Mako: Elizabeth, welcome to the show. Before we get into all these tips and tricks about why packaging is important and how to do it well as a hardware startup, just give us a quick background of how you became the success that you are today.

00:01:58 Elizabeth Corbett: Oh, that's such a nice way to put it. My background is graphic design and print production. I ended up working for a paper mill for 17 years because because I love a physical product that you can touch. And while there, I had the opportunity

00:02:14 Elizabeth Corbett: to build their packaging division and worked with customers like Tiffany and Starbucks and Estee Lauder, Samsung, and really had the opportunities to do a lot of the work. Opportunity to really get in tight with those customers and understand the power of packaging.

00:02:30 Elizabeth Corbett: So that packaging could be anything from how it protects the product, because I've worked with customers where they ended up having a situation where they designed something that looked great. But honestly, the very most important thing that packaging is supposed to do is protect

00:02:43 Elizabeth Corbett: the product. Because if you receive it to your house and it's broken, it didn't do what it was supposed to. Whether it's an e-commerce packaging or a jar or a folding carton. And then remembering

00:02:54 Elizabeth Corbett: that, again, I love the experience of packaging. I think that's why I ended up doing that. I've always been somebody that needed to touch it and feel it. I don't think I could sell insurance

00:03:04 Elizabeth Corbett: insurance or financing. I want to sell something that I can actually see it on a shelf or touch it. And one of my favorite things about packaging is that it's the one thing that every single

00:03:16 Elizabeth Corbett: consumer interacts with, right? You have to interact with it in some way. And now, I mean, even more so than let's say 20 or 25 or 30 years ago, sometimes that's the only thing that a

00:03:29 Elizabeth Corbett: a company has that really interacts with the customer, right? That's your whole relationship. That's Your Opportunity to Develop Your Message, to Build Loyalty. I mean, there's so many different

00:03:40 Elizabeth Corbett: things that I could talk about with that. But that's, I think, part of the reason why I fell in love with it and that I continued to make my whole career about that.

00:03:48 Kevin Mako: And you've worked some major brands, Starbucks, Tiffany's, Estee Lauder, L'Oreal. I remember you're telling me before the show a bit of a story about Tiffany's packaging causing products to

00:03:58 Kevin Mako: essentially break. They had this huge issue and they brought you in to help solve that very problem. So the first thing you mentioned is, look, the main thing about packaging, I think everyone thinks about it in terms of an advertising vehicle. The reality is,

00:04:11 Kevin Mako: first and foremost, make sure it protects the goods to get to your customer.

00:04:15 Elizabeth Corbett: It's really the most important thing. And then there's some other core things that are kind of my personal mantra when I'm working with a customer, whether it's doing a rebrand, brand building packaging for a brand new brand. Number one, like you said, it's got to take care

00:04:29 Elizabeth Corbett: of the product. Number two, it really got to represent the brand. You know, what is your brand all about? Is it something that's really sleek and new? Is something that supposed to be super eco and feel eco? Is that something that really luxurious? Is this something that

00:04:44 Elizabeth Corbett: you know more cost-effective? So it's gotta really represent your brand. It's gotta meet your budget. I've been involved in plenty of meetings where I had a customer bring to me this super elaborate design that they had worked with this really high-end branding firm

00:04:58 Elizabeth Corbett: and they brought me this box and I was like, wow, that's really expensive. And they said, yeah, my budget is a dollar a box and they gave me a box that's $5 a box. And I was, like, well, that's a fail, right? Because they forgot one of the key tenets is,

00:05:09 Elizabeth Corbett: you know, whatever I design, I want to make sure it fits your budget, right. Really, those are the, if you ask me, those are three most important things. Protect your product, represent your brand, and meet your budget. And then there are certain other things, like how is,

00:05:22 Elizabeth Corbett: you already brought this up, but how is this product going to be sold? Is it going to be sold on shelf at CVS or is it going be sold through, you know, via e-commerce? Is it going to be sold on shelf at Best Buy, right? Is it, you know, how is that product going to get to the

00:05:36 Elizabeth Corbett: customer? So that's, you know certainly something really important and that's going to determine I do a lot of work in nutraceuticals and supplements for example and the product the packaging that we may have that goes into CVS or

00:05:49 Elizabeth Corbett: or Walgreens might be different than the e-commerce version. Those are things to think about. If it's e-commerce and you were trying to be super environmental and you thought the best way to do that was a glass jar, well, the glass jar is going to have to be made in China

00:06:03 Elizabeth Corbett: or Taiwan. That's not very ecological, right? Sustainability footprint's rough. It's going to cost a whole bunch to ship it and you have a really good chance of it breaking if you're in

00:06:12 Elizabeth Corbett: e-commerce. So is there a way to use either a flexible package or a recycled PET jar that is 40 to 100% post-consumer and can be recycled? Those are the things to think about. It's like,

00:06:24 Elizabeth Corbett: how are you going to sell the product? And do you have a sustainability directive as a company? It's really common now when I'm doing a whole new rebrand with a number of products with a large

00:06:36 Elizabeth Corbett: water filtration company. And one of the things that I love about it is that in all the startup meetings, whatever the new product is, there's a member of their ESG team in the room. And that's That's really cool because that means that whatever we're talking about, that's being

00:06:50 Elizabeth Corbett: considered. Is it, you know, recycled, recyclability? Where is it coming? Are you making sure that the packaging is right-sized? I mean, nobody loves the Amazon box that comes to your door that's 10 times bigger than the item that's inside. I don't love that.

00:07:04 Elizabeth Corbett: I'm assuming you don't like that. I don't love that either. And then one of the other things in terms of how you're selling it, we talked about e-commerce. Is this something that's going to get sold through, for example, like Amazon?

00:07:13 Elizabeth Corbett: Amazon and there are things that you can do to help reduce your cost. Is there a way to make this product so it's SIOC—ship in own container? That will save you a ton of money within the Amazon organization. So those are, I mean, I just threw a lot of different considerations

00:07:30 Elizabeth Corbett: there of the things to think about and why packaging is important.

00:07:34 Kevin Mako: So powerful. And there's many things there. Starting first and foremost, obviously you need to protect the product, but let's assume we've done that because we can protect it with a brown cardboard box with some infill. So what is the main benefits that you see of elevating

00:07:48 Kevin Mako: your packaging? Even let's say you're just considering as a hardware startup, you're going to do direct-to-consumer. Maybe you're going to try and shop it around to some potential buyers. Maybe it's shopping around to potential investors. What is the value of going from a brown

00:08:00 Kevin Mako: cardboard box up to a beautiful package that represents your brand? I would actually do two

00:08:07 Elizabeth Corbett: two things based on what you just talked about. One is I do a lot of influencer kits and influencer kits can also double as an investor kit where you're really trying to have something that is a

00:08:19 Elizabeth Corbett: big wow factor. I did a box for Wahl clippers—you know, the beard clippers—where it was it was beautiful. There were only 75 boxes. It was black and it was gorgeous. And you opened it up and it was this new high-end clipper.

00:08:33 Elizabeth Corbett: And in that case, they were trying to get different salons and barbershops throughout North America to carry this product. It was basically an exclusive arrangement with people who are influencers, I guess, in that world. That can also work on a finance level

00:08:48 Elizabeth Corbett: when you're looking for financial investment. And then let's look at the e-commerce. There are some basics because I'm all about making sure you can make something look too wow, like what are you trying to accomplish?

00:09:00 Elizabeth Corbett: accomplish. So anytime e-commerce, I always say, just do a craft outside. It's going to get dirty anyway, right? If you do white, it ends up getting scuffed in the mail or UPS or whatever. And you

00:09:10 Elizabeth Corbett: also want to try to make it not look too amazing on the outside because you don't want porch theft, right? You don't wants somebody looking at that box on the, on your doorstep and going, Ooh, what's that? That looks amazing. So on the side can be something that's

00:09:21 Elizabeth Corbett: fairly utilitarian, but when you open it up, that's when you have that opportunity to really interact with your customer and make it a full experience. So that can be like full print on the outside that can have a QR code where that customer can scan that. And then

00:09:38 Elizabeth Corbett: maybe they get to a YouTube site. Maybe they get a personalized video to build that relationship with that consumer because they're not interacting with a person in a store anymore. And when they bought it from you online, I mean, they're just buying it from online. There's no

00:09:53 Elizabeth Corbett: no personal interaction. That can be used for so many different things, even the opportunity to help them figure out how to install it or if there's a history behind your product. I'm a huge believer in that. It can even be not a hardware, but one of my favorite packages I

00:10:10 Elizabeth Corbett: ever saw from this perspective is that, and my husband's going to hate me for this, but my husband subscribes to MeUndies.com. It's where he gets all his men's underwear. And when you first

00:10:20 Elizabeth Corbett: buy them, you get a 12 pack, right? And it's in this box and you open it up and their colors are black and purple. And so the outside of the box is black and then you open up and it's just flooded

00:10:31 Elizabeth Corbett: with purples, but it definitely gets you attention. And there's one pair of undies on the top and it on a platform and it says, Hey, welcome. And then it just says, wait, try these on first, make sure they work. If they don't, then you're going to send the whole thing back.

00:10:45 Elizabeth Corbett: and then if it works great you lift up another platform and then there's the other 11 i loved that because and even my husband did because it was a whole interaction right i will forever i

00:10:56 Elizabeth Corbett: will forever remember the first time my husband got his delivery from MeUndies.com on something that's pretty basic right

00:11:02 Kevin Mako: yeah that's powerful it's amazing that you can use packaging i think the biggest thing for hardware startups to think about is like this packaging is free real estate First of all, they've already bought your product. Your job, especially as a hardware startup is to

00:11:15 Kevin Mako: get raving fans, loyal customers, great reviews. In order to do that, you've got this extra opportunity. Now, obviously your product is great and it's solving some need and that's why you've

00:11:25 Kevin Mako: invented it. You've produced it and hopefully you've done a world-class job at making a great quality product that they're going to love, but why not take it one step further and use this free real estate that you've gotten on the package, which is right in front of them.

00:11:38 Kevin Mako: like you said, Elizabeth, it's interactive. It's something that you're guaranteed to interact with and work with. Use that to your advantage. And I love that idea that you mentioned about the QR

00:11:46 Kevin Mako: code that maybe leads to a video. I would take it one step further as well as make sure it's a founder's video. This should be you talking to your customers as a group and saying, thanks.

00:11:56 Kevin Mako: Thanks for subscribing. If you let me know if there's any problems with it, I'll make it right right away. And if you could leave me a review, it is literally changing our lives as we create this amazing venture and this is why we've created this business and this

00:12:10 Kevin Mako: is why you've got this product in front of you and so on. There's so much power in terms of connecting with those early audience members. Those customers are going to help you as a hardware startup lever up to the next bigger set of buyers, either

00:12:22 Kevin Mako: more customers online or now maybe getting into retail buyers, wholesale buyers, distributors, etc. So use your early customers and don't waste the potential of what the packaging could do to help your product

00:12:34 Kevin Mako: business out. And there's a lot more bad e-commerce packaging than there is good e-com

00:12:40 Elizabeth Corbett: packaging. And from a cost difference, it's not that different. I redesigned Tiffany's e-commerce packaging. So believe it or not, Tiffany's e-commerce used to be the blue box. Everybody knows the blue

00:12:51 Elizabeth Corbett: box. And it was wrapped like a thousand times in bubble wrap, stuck in a simple cardboard RSC and just shipped off. So if I'm you and I'm sending my mom, whatever, this really beautiful thing

00:13:03 Elizabeth Corbett: from Tiffany and it arrives that way, that's a pretty miserable experience. And when I worked with their head of supply chain on that, I asked her, I said, okay, before we get started on this,

00:13:15 Elizabeth Corbett: you know, is there anything you want to keep? And she was like, no. I was like so what's your overall overarching goal with this? And She said, I want to be in a YouTube video. She said I want

00:13:25 Elizabeth Corbett: to see my packaging in a youtube video. And that always resonated with me because that can be to anything that can be in, you know, the products that we're talking about, too. I mentioned that

00:13:35 Elizabeth Corbett: Wahl clipper box. They've reordered from me a number of times because that box was so successful because within a week there was like 20 videos from people who had gotten that 20 out of 75 is a pretty amazing average. And to me, that's part of what you guys should be hoping for,

00:13:50 Elizabeth Corbett: too, is that somebody so excited about that, that they're showing it, they're opening it,

00:13:55 Kevin Mako: they're sharing that experience. That's great. Elizabeth, talk a bit about what you're doing at AE Global. You're the president of Enterprise, which is obviously a big division within that

00:14:03 Kevin Mako: corporation, helping large corporations doing the next versions of their packaging. What does AE Global do to help hardware startups?

00:14:12 Elizabeth Corbett: We really are a start-to-finish model. So we have our own full in-house innovation lab with eight structural designers on staff in Miami. And then we've got a couple more in Boston as well. And they come with a really wide

00:14:29 Elizabeth Corbett: range of experience, which is super helpful. So we're doing everything from the creative, the branding side to the structural design as well. Next step at that point then is prototyping. So not only am I doing all the structural design, we're actually building all the prototypes,

00:14:46 Elizabeth Corbett: including merchandising for them to be able to do a face to face with Walmart, that could be Home Depot, that could be Best Buy. I mean, obviously there's a lot of different organizations

00:14:54 Elizabeth Corbett: that that works with. So we're building them all the tools that help them. We can do that in a virtual perspective, virtual renderings, but honestly, I think physical is that much more

00:15:04 Elizabeth Corbett: important. And when you have those in front of a consumer, that is a huge deal. And then from that stage, then we're able to build a full production and supply chain model. And we produce about 75%

00:15:17 Elizabeth Corbett: of the packaging we produce is in North America. About 25% is offshore. It really depends on a number of things. The other thing that we keep in mind is the sustainability footprint. And then

00:15:27 Elizabeth Corbett: we work in all kinds of different structures. We work in glass, plastic, flexible, paperboard, displays, you name it. And if I can't make it, I'm really good at finding you the person who can.

00:15:38 Kevin Mako: That's great. So the hardware startups bring you products and you figure out everything that they need on the packaging front. Super helpful.

00:15:45 Elizabeth Corbett: That's correct.

00:15:46 Kevin Mako: Elizabeth, thanks so much for being on the show today. I'll put the notes below to your website, so anyone could just click through there. I will add your LinkedIn as well if anybody wants to reach out. Elizabeth is quite active on LinkedIn. Thanks again for being

00:15:58 Kevin Mako: on the Show. All your words of wisdom about packaging for hardware startups.

00:16:02 Elizabeth Corbett: Thank you.

00:16:03 Kevin Mako: Thanks. Take care.

00:16:05 Kevin Mako: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast. If you found some value in the show, please do us a huge favor and hit the like button and subscribe. If you have any questions, guest suggestions, or anything else, feel free to reach out to

00:16:19 Kevin Mako: us anytime at our email, podcast@MakoDesign.com. This show is hosted by Kevin Mako, North America's leading expert on product development for hardware startups. And the podcast is produced by Mako Design, the original firm providing end-to-end consumer

00:16:35 Kevin Mako: product development services tailored specifically to hardware startups, small manufacturers and inventors. Take your product from idea to store shelves at MakoDesign.com. That's M-A-K-O Design dot com. Thanks for joining and see you again soon.