Blog Business

Christmas Special! Marketing and packaging ideas for your brand

26 May, 2022
- Rachele Mosca
 
Even if Christmas still seems far away, it will be a moment that we will find ourselves during coloured lights, Santa Clauses, and Christmas decorations. At the end of the year, the Christmas spirit is felt more and more, and the Christmas packages play their part.
 
 
The most magical and traditional month, as well as the ideal time to field a series of marketing activities, since in many cases it represents the moment of most excellent turnover for a company. For this reason knowing how to make the most of it is essential.
 
Many brands invest time and resources in marketing for Christmas. A well-organized project allows you to sell more, make yourself known to new customers and retain existing ones. The key is to find the best way to present your products this holiday season, adding a personal Christmas touch.
 
Creating a Christmas packaging with a unique and quality design, as well as being a great way to promote your business and to make your brand known, means getting straight to your customers' hearts, making them excited thanks to the Christmas spirit and feeling special. Especially for medium-small businesses, it becomes essential to stand out from the competition. The key, therefore, lies in finding the best way to present your products during this holiday period, adding a personal Christmas touch and going to produce packaging ad hoc for the occasion.
 
 
 
In this article, we will talk about how vital Christmas marketing is for a brand, and we will give you some marketing ideas for Christmas to put in place to be able to move at your best during this holiday season. We will also understand why having personalized Christmas packaging makes the difference, and we will see together how to design one that highlights your product and your brand.
 
Let's find out what are the points we will address in this article:
  1. Christmas Packaging (Custom!)
            -  Colours of Christmas: choosing the right colour palette
            -  Symbols & Icons
            -  Font
            -  Special Finiture
            -  Material
            - Custom inserts and internal dividers
            -  Custom labels
  2. Limited Editions
  3. Telling a story, creating emotions
  4. A few more tips ...
 
 

Customized Christmas Packaging

Creating a Christmas packaging means arousing in the customer the curiosity to discard it to discover its content. During this holiday season, in particular, getting to the customers' hearts is the top priority. A packaging explicitly made for Christmas can make the customer feel special and represents a great way to thank him for the trust and build loyalty and entice him to take advantage of his products or services again.
 
We know that a product's packaging can influence the consumer's purchase decision, even if we are talking about the Christmas period. A Christmas packaging can attract consumers' attention and evoke the magical atmosphere that reigns in these weeks. It turns out to be a straightforward tool, but at the same time very effective for increasing sales and making your product stand out among the many personalised boxes of other brands.
 
More and more companies have begun to seize this opportunity to establish a bond with their customers, using this type of marketing for Christmas. Precisely for this reason, it is essential to keep up with your competitors; however, you need to know how to act to make the most of this period.
 
The simple fact of creating customized packages for the Christmas period adds value to the products and your brand. There are several advantages to creating personalized Christmas packaging; in fact, it helps to renew your brand's image and represent an opportunity to surprise your customers positively. Furthermore, it might seem trivial, but since the logo placed on the package will be continuously in the sight of many people, the Christmas packaging will allow you to make your brand known to a broad audience with minimal effort.
 
And if you want to amaze your customers, having an eye for sustainability, you can think of alternative ideas for creating sustainable packaging, for example, using recycled materials. The possibilities are so many; find the one that best suits you and your business. In addition, a beautiful gift box avoids waste, as those who receive it are more tempted to keep it for reuse rather than throw it away. This type of packaging can add value to your product, as it becomes an integral part of the offer. If aesthetically well designed, it can be considered a second product supplied with the original, as it can be reused over time.
 
 
 
 
 
Christmas' colours: choosing the right ones
Everyone knows, the two absolute colours par excellence that they remember at Christmas are green and red. The range of Christmas colours can undoubtedly be more comprehensive, but these two will always remain a certainty. By using red and green for your Christmas packaging, even if only for trim details, you can't go wrong. The reference will be immediately apparent to everyone. The use of these two colours in a Christmas package creates a clear link with the period of the year. And if you don't have in mind to create a Christmas packaging in all respects, you could still think of inserting a small detail that brings back the colours of Christmas.
The green-red combination is lovely and representative of Christmas. However, it is not suitable for any brand. The use of gold, associated with white or black, turns out to be an exquisite solution even for more minimal brands and luxury. On the other hand, if you want to get a more elegant touch, rather than a "welcoming" one, we can rely on the timeless gold, black and white. And if you play with the typical colour of Kraft paper, even the simple use of white, printed in screen printing, can give life to an excellent Christmas packaging, straightforward and clean but effective.
 
 
 
 
 
Symbols & Icons
The colour sure helps to recreate the Christmas spirit, but maybe not as much as the pictures. Choosing typical Christmas symbols and icons to create a pattern that acts as a background for your packaging will make it clear to everyone that yours is a Christmas packaging explicitly designed for the occasion. But be careful. It is essential to know how to choose the correct symbols.
 
Golden stars, snowflakes, Santa Claus, gift packages, candied fruit, reindeer, bells and Christmas trees, whoever has more; whether you want to create a minimal or more elaborate packaging, you will not go wrong starting with one or more of these symbols. Use them to create a pattern or choose some to use in detail; try to combine them wisely, like in Christmas sweaters.
If you know how to choose the correct symbols, regardless of the combination of colours you choose, they will immediately recall the holiday period and convey the typical magic.
 
To put them on your packaging, you can act in 2 ways: draw them from scratch or find a vector version online. Many free images and vector sites can help you with this. I would recommend  Freepik; here, you will find many resources available also for free and downloadable that you can use within your projects. [P.S. Remember to check the Licenses of the resources you use, whether images, videos, or audio].
 
 
 
 
 
Typographic Font
Another small detail that can make a difference is the choice of font. The character, as well as the icons, is remarkably evocative. It can bring back a memory and arouse emotions, so you have to know how to choose it carefully, to be able to recreate the Christmas spirit. Some typographic fonts can already remember Christmas by themselves. In contrast, others acquire a Christmas touch only when combined with certain elements such as illustrations and colours, so understand which ones are the most suitable.
 
In any case, if you want to recreate the right atmosphere for Christmas packaging, you have to rely on calligraphic-style typefaces, which always turn out to be very traditional and elegant. At Christmas, the tradition fits perfectly. An alternative to calligraphic ones can instead be retro-looking fonts, such as those that recreate typing, or those that were used in posters or on book covers; both when used in combination with Christmas colours such as red, white and gold, they allow to obtain a Christmas touch of solid impact.
 
 
Are you looking for fonts that mimic handwriting?
Discover our article on Calligraphic Fonts: many examples and direct download links.
 
 
Special Finishing
The possibilities of digital printing are almost infinite, and at our disposal, there are now several unique processes, which you can use in your projects. Go beyond print and think big. The embossing is an excellent solution for luxury brands who want to make their packaging even more elegant and sophisticated. It represents a complete detail and is always very effective.
Use hot foil to highlight some details of your packaging; it will add value and a pinch of Christmas spirit to the simplest of products and offer a unique finishing touch. If you don't have a particular project in mind, you can even think about hot stamping your brand; you will see how the result will change already.
 
 
Hot Foil: how it works and when to use it
Discover one of the most appreciated and used finishes

 

 
Right material
The natural colour of the Kraft paper, the classic beige-brown typical of this paper, always makes it very versatile for different packaging solutions. A slightly rustic design immediately creates a sense of familiar "warmth" and knows how to make the most of its simplicity. Furthermore, it represents one of the most sustainable solutions that a brand can choose. They are the right choice to give that touch of sustainability to the Christmas packaging of its brand.
 
 
Discover the recycled and sustainable papers of Materia Viva Fedrigoni!
Give a touch of sustainability to your projects.

 

 
Custom inserts and internal dividers
Another helpful idea for your Christmas packaging, not in terms of graphics, but structure and functionality, can be adding internal dividers and inserts of various types. By doing so, your packaging will remain tidier when opened, and your products will be more protected as they will not be able to move. One of those minor details makes the difference; this type of foresight will give the customer greater attention in producing the pack.
 
 
Customized Labels
If you don't feel like creating Christmas packaging from scratch or already have a supply of boxes that you want to reuse, labels are the right solution for you. Labels always prove to be an excellent solution, also in terms of costs, as they represent a simple detail that allows you to use your usual packaging and make it personalized with minimal effort. A simple cardboard box can look different with a custom-designed label. Just draw it in a Christmas theme, and you have created an excellent Christmas packaging.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Limited Edition

Another of the marketing for Christmas that I wanted to offer you is the Limited Editions. Suppose you decide to produce personalised, unique and quality Christmas packaging. In that case, you can also think about focusing on the exclusivity of the offer and offering it in a limited edition, making it available only for this Christmas, for example. The advantage of exclusivity will make consumers grow the irrepressible desire to purchase that limited edition packaging. It's a product they perceive as rare, collectable, and unrepeatable, so with more excellent value. The hypothetical loss of this advantage creates confusion in the choice of purchase and pushes customers to an urgency that goes beyond the actual need.
 
A good example is Starbucks, with its limited-edition cups that it presents every year on the holidays. Compared to the classic product, the novelties such as the bright colours and the designs inspired by Christmas bring us back to the Christmas spirit, coming straight to the heart and immediately attracting our attention. In short, a move designed not only to build customer loyalty but also - and above all - to increase sales in this particular holiday period.
 
 

Telling a story, creating emotions

Storytelling can also prove to be a viable marketing strategy, particularly around the holidays. People like to hear stories, and packaging can be an accurate storytelling tool. Storytelling is the art of telling a story, and in communication, it is used to communicate thoughts, emotions, experiences or, more generally, messages. It works, we can assure you because it ultimately involves the consumer by making him feel emotions that give rise to memories, experiences, experiences, feelings. In short, it goes straight to the heart, making that brand memorable.
 
 It becomes even more effective and meaningful at a company level because, through it, a brand can tell and tell itself, with images, texts, colours, illustrations and materials, arousing consumers' curiosity. Revealing to your customers what is and who is behind the brand, history, values ​​, and people will allow you to establish a link between the brand and consumers more than any other marketing strategy. The narration aims to bring potential consumers to identify with the story, participate in it, and make it their own.
 
Especially under the holidays, the stories turn out to be very powerful, more potent than many other offers and discounts. They awaken the child who is deep inside each of us. They make us feel welcomed and pampered because they bring to mind the good Christmas memories of when we were little, they make us excited and, consequently, they make us buy!
 
 
Check out our article on Storytelling Packaging Design!
"Packaging that tells a story"
 
 

Some more advice...

Remember that helpful information must always be relevant.The Christmas spirit must not distract your attention from the main objective, which is to sell the product and provide all the necessary information with it.
 
Stay focused on some key points. The brand's recognition must always remain the most important aspect to follow. The packaging must know how to adapt to the brand's corporate image, even before the anniversary or holiday. As we said before, the use of Christmas-themed packages can represent an added value, but if you do not lose sight of the identity of the product and of the brand above all in producing them.
 
Don't forget the excellent taste.In the last article, we saw how important it is for a brand to produce personalized Christmas packaging, but be careful not to be too excessive with elements that resemble Christmas; it is good to use them but not to the detriment of good taste!
 
 
 
We have come to the end of this article, and we thought we would share some marketing ideas for Christmas and tips with you! Unleash your creativity to create packaging that conveys the Christmas spirit. And don't forget, if you need to print your personalized Christmas packaging, don't hesitate to contact the Labelado Team, we will be happy to accompany you on this little Christmas adventure!
 
I hope you enjoyed this article! If you are interested in the subject and want to know more, you can find the video shot by us with a Christmas theme.
 
👍SUBSCRIBE to our Youtube channel and join the Labelado community to be always updated on the world of packaging!
 
 
Next