Everywhere you look shape helps define brands, the consumer’s association with a product and interest in purchasing it. Shapes can facilitate style, convenience, image and usage. Shaping is not going away - it helps define products, set them apart and elevate their usage in the market place. Shapes are integral to packaging and guide innovation.

Ball conducted a consumer study to understand how consumers value shape. When does shape matter? To whom? What impact does shape have? Most importantly, what shapes generate targeted appeal? This was not a study of ergonomics, closures, handles or other functional packaging features; rather we wanted to understand how consumers are affected by functional and emotional drivers behind shape at retail.  

Market Trends: a Framework for Consumer Understanding

Similar to designs and shapes they gravitate to in their personal lives, Ball’s study respondents look to packaging shapes to convey something about themselves (or who they want to be) as individuals.

Five macro trends are prevalent in the marketplace and represent some things that impact shape design and preference:

• Woman Power (women account for 85% of consumer purchases)
• Connection and Badging (showcase personal tastes)
• Health and Wellness (balanced life)
• Populuxe (drawn to external expressions of status)
• On-the-go (functional, convenient)

They serve as an overarching framwork that gives context to our research findings because they drive much of the insights and consumer feedback. 

Consumer Insight: Why is Shape Important?

Shape does everything to differentiate a product and create appeal, although subconsciously for some, while also saying something about the consumer. Design is a true product differentiator - products are more than ever defined through shape to reach specific audiences via direct sensory and aesthetic appeal. However, shaping for the sake of shaping is meaningless and wasteful. It is also confusing to the consumer.

Shape needs to be connected to the targeted consumer, brand, occasion and function. Without strategic thought behind shape, a shape will go unnoticed, or worse, elicit negative emotional associations. It’s the first thing to be noticed and the first thing to be off if not right.

Opportunities exist for new shape innovation across multiple categories IF the shape creates or helps to create a positive framework of reference that communicates relevant consumer benefits or product attributes.

Positive Frame of Reference

Best liked shapes can be categorized as those that elecit a positive "frame of reference," meaning:

• An instantaneous, positive connection with the shape
• Usually a positive reference point that can be tied back to a consumer’s life making the shape highly resonant on a personal level
• A hint of "brand promise" or potential - something that implies an intended experience

From a design standpoint, positive "FOR" shapes make a decision. They try to be something, conveying a positive brand promise to the consumer. For example, "active/sporty" bottles are fluid in shape, often ridged and promise convenience, portability and activity.

Nine positive frames of reference classify the package shapes that received positive interest from study participants: fun, classic, elegant, sexy/feminine, comfortable/caretaking, functional, active, masculine and strong.

The wheel above represents how study participants sorted the different bottle shapes, generating the positive frames of reference. Many shapes were universally sorted into certain frames, but sometimes the same shape appears in multiple frames. This shows that the same shape can have different meanings for different people, and that meanings may vary depending on the perceived use or product associated with the shape.

Brand Promise Delivered Through Shape

The wheel below describes the brand promise delivered by shapes associated with each positive frame of reference.

 Shaping Watch Outs

Several shapes consistently fell out of the positive frame of reference for respondents. There are lessons to be learned from shapes that didn’t resonate - a few exapmles of designs that did not make a decision, tried to be too many things or tried too hard to make a statement are below.