Starbucks amazes me. The company has some majorly brilliant marketing minds, in my opinion. And they've long since had extremely strong branding for both their company and the products it creates (I'm not a fan of their recently updated logo, though).
One of Starbuck's newest products enters the "energy drink" space with its Refreshers collection. And while it is, of course, trying to capitalize on this trend they're also appealing to those consumers who are a little on the health-conscious side.
The right packaging can make or break a customer's decision to purchase a product. If the packaging is unappealing, a customer will not give the product a second thought. Instead, they will move right on to a competitor product, and a sale, as well as a potential customer relationship is lost.
One area of packaging design that I find very interesting is the re-design of an existing packaging or the packaging design of a new product line for an existing brand. I find both of these situations interesting because of the challenge to meld the new idea or product with the branding which customers have formed a connection.
Ashley K. Edwards recently posted a very insightful analysis of the Starbucks Refreshers packaging design, a new product line for a well-established brand. Starbucks has always been known for their creative marketing ideas, and most of us business school graduates probably read many case studies about those ideas; however, this is an different perspective on their marketing tactics using one of their newest product lines. I highly recommend checking out this article to learn about how Starbucks created a new product in response to trends in drink preferences, while still maintaining their core brand image.
