Custom packaging has become trendy recently as businesses seek to improve consumer engagement and gain a competitive advantage. However, creating unique packaging is not as easy as you may hope. Any business looking to have custom packaging for products must consider variables such as cost, workforce, and, most importantly, whether it is offering what consumers want.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) answers many of these questions, enabling brands to create custom packaging that meets their businesses’ core needs. Rather than creating generic designs that are only minimally different from what others offer, innovative brands personalize custom packaging to meet consumers’ unique needs. In the next sections, we will walk you through how they use AI to achieve these purposes.
Characteristics of AI Personalized Custom Packaging
AI-personalized custom packaging has some unique features. The use of AI to personalize these packaging items makes it easy to add unique touches on custom packaging. Here are some key elements of custom packaging trends to note.
- Colors: AI can analyze data efficiently, suggesting ideas like colors and graphics that are best suited for each consumer demographic. For instance, it might use bright, cheerful colors for children and appeal to adults with neutral, minimalistic tones.
- Typography: When using AI to personalize custom packaging, you can also explore diverse fonts and typography. Ideal personalized packaging for senior citizens will adopt bold, highly legible typography to improve accessibility. On the other hand, it may retain fancy, curvy fonts for younger consumers who prioritize aesthetics.
- Interactive features: Custom packaging options are adopting smart/interactive features that improve the purposes they serve. Manufacturers use smart packaging solutions tools like sensors and QR codes to engage better with products and users throughout the supply chain.
Ways AI is Improving Custom Packaging Through Personalization
The introduction of AI to custom packaging is making the designs go beyond what was previously characteristic of these items. These AI packaging designs give brands more freedom to create unique images that help their products stand out in the market.
Enabling Real-Time Personalization
AI tools with machine learning algorithms can help you gather, analyze, and optimize data in real time to create individualized packaging for customers. A practical way to do this is to use AI-driven analytics to find the top designs your customers prefer, seeing which demographics prefer one over the other. Importantly, real-time design automation will enable you to respond quickly to consumer preferences and improve your connection to your target market.
Allowing Brands to Create Dynamic Designs
There is little to no limit on how you can personalize custom packaging designs with AI. Novel solutions like variable data printing (VDP) allow you to customize individual packages with unique elements like QR codes and personalized messages. Coca-Cola has one of the best real-world examples of using digital printing AI to create personalized packaging. It printed real people’s names on Coke bottles, stirring excitement as customers attempted to find their names.
Improving Design Iteration Times with AI Automation
Brands have experimented with custom packaging over time, but the introduction of AI into the process elevates the practice to unprecedented levels. AI speeds up the iteration process, refining products to reflect consumer feedback. While many are still debating the role of AI in branding, even critics cannot deny the increase in efficiency it has caused.
Improves Sustainability and Cost-Effectiveness
Most of the ways AI helps in personalizing custom packaging designs are related, often forming a chain. To put this into context, AI allows businesses to optimize material usage in packaging, reducing waste and operational costs. While you might quickly notice its impact on cost-effectiveness, it goes beyond that.
On a closer look, using AI can help businesses operate in more sustainable manners. By facilitating efficient packaging techniques, you can reduce excesses and consequently, waste in packaging. At a period where sustainability is becoming increasingly important for brand image, using AI to personalize custom packaging is a great bet to kill two birds with one stone.
Enhances Consumer Engagement
One of the common features of AI personalizing custom packaging is the inclusion of smart/interactive solutions. These tools serve multiple purposes from helping manufacturers monitor products throughout the supply chain to improving consumer engagement. On the latter, personalized designs make custom packaging more appealing to consumers.
Having something unique from others, even if it’s only packaging, appeals greatly to most people. Most would want to explore the full depth of services like AI-powered QR codes that provide them with detailed information on using the product. Over time, this breeds loyalty, ensuring that you keep old customers coming even as you attract new ones.
Final Thoughts on How AI is Personalizing Custom Packaging Designs in Real Time
There is a lot to unpack in AI or machine learning packaging designs in real time. However, innovative brands are already taking charge of exploring the potential of these tools. Fortunately, these are not highly expensive solutions that are available only to large businesses. You can adopt some of the features even for your small or medium-sized business, exploring how it improves your operations.
