How We Use Matched Packaging to Create a Halo Effect for Your Business

In a lot of ways, business owes a lot to psychology. The science of how people think is instrumental in creating compelling cases for our products and brands. It influences marketing, customer perception, how we stand out from the competition, and even our understanding of how many jellies should be on a store shelf.

What Is a Halo Effect?

The halo effect is a psychological term referring to a specific form of cognitive bias discovered by Edward Thorndike. Thorndike found that the way we think about a person influences how we feel and think about other aspects of them. In other words, if you like someone, you’re more likely to evaluate them positively. The same works in reverse as well.

In marketing, the halo effect refers to the act of using one part of a brand to make another part of it look good by extension. There are all kinds of ways that brands try to build a halo effect from celebrity endorsements to good, old-fashioned brand building.

Done correctly, a halo effect can enhance your overall brand image and communicate your value across products. If you build your brand’s reputation, customers will develop a positive emotional connection to your brand. You’ll find it easier to sell other products as you’ve already established and built a positive reputation.

How to Build a Halo Effect for Your Business

The most direct way to create a halo effect for your business is through good brand building. By articulating your values and building on them, customers will come to see you through those values. They’ll know what you stand for and start to see themselves as part of that story.

An oft-overlooked way to improve your brand reputation, and therefore secure a halo effect, is to offer great customer service. Great customer service is the difference between a customer having a bad day and vowing never to come back or a customer getting the resolution your business offers and telling their friends that you stand by your product.

Of course, one of the most visible methods of creating a halo effect is partnering with celebrities or athletes. When professional athletes represent a brand of sportswear, customers will associate that sportswear with that athlete.

A word of caution is appropriate here. As marketers and business people, it’s important to use the halo effect authentically. Doing otherwise can harm your brand reputation and reverse the effect. It’s also not a cure-all. It won’t overcome a weak product offering. In the end, authenticity is just as important, if not more so, than clever marketing.

How Matched Packaging Can Create a Halo Effect

When we developed the To Go Fresh Matched Packaging line, we tested several designs with focus groups. We received several very critical pieces of feedback that told us the To Go Fresh design was a hit:

• “If I happen to go by the deli or bakery and I see something that’s packaged really well, I’m more likely to make an impulse purchase.”
• “If I’m going home and I have people coming over, I would just leave this [packaging] here because this looks good.”
• They’re not just throwing food they found in the package in the back somewhere.”
• “[To Go Fresh] looks like it [would] taste better.”

These quotes, taken together, show that we managed to achieve that halo effect with matched packaging. By showing real deli, bakery, and fresh and prepared foods customers that someone put some real thought and care into their packaging, they then perceived the food as having just as much thought and care put into it.

In other words, the packaging enhanced the perception of the food it contained.

Ready To Get Your Own Halo?

If you’re ready to explore Inno-Pak’s matched packaging or our custom print solutions, fill out the form below or at www.innopak.com/contact. One of our sales or customer care representatives will reach out to you and answer any questions that you may have.