Effective Branding: Which Marketing Instruments Spends Most Time with your Audience: Is Time the new Currency in Branding

Time. A real metric, that is most overlooked in deciding marketing ROI.

How important is TIME as a factor when evaluating marketing instruments for effectiveness?

If the purpose of effective branding is to try and develop a relationship between your product and your audience then which element in the marketing mix would be able to deliver that in the best way? The one your brands spend most time with?

If creating relationships is an important goal of branding, TIME is essential to form deep connections!

To answer that question we must ask what the foundations are of relationships. Besides trust, which we’ll translate as the actual product delivery, relationships require time to form. From all elements in the marketing mix packaging design in many cases spends most time with its audience. Yet as a marketing tool it’s a bit underutilized in most cases!

How much time does an audience spend with common branding instruments?

In the busy multi-tasking world we live in these days getting the attention of your audience is a very difficult task. Most people’s brains have subscribed to an imaginary spam filter allowing you to filter noise better making it even harder for advertising messages to reach consumers. Ignoring that for the moment, I’ve tried to list some of the more common forms of branding and I’ve tried to put a time duration to each instrument to help assess which spend most time with its audience.

Television Commercial (10–30 seconds)

Average duration between 10 and 30 seconds, perfect to check what’s on the other channel or, if you’re quick, enough time for an ultra quick pee break!

Youtube Ad (5 seconds)

5 seconds before you can skip it (and who really watches those till the end?). Non-active users who run a playlist in the background while doing something else might have to sit through the entire 30 or in some cases 60 seconds before the clips you actually want to watch will resume playing.

Print Ad (the duration of a page flip)

As much time as it takes to flip the page? Or in the best case, assuming the article next to it is interesting maybe 5 minutes at most?

Product Placement (the blink of an eye)

Did I mention I multi-task a lot? It’s hard to find me so glued to the TV that I actually take notice of what products are being snuck in. For those who are not like me, perhaps the blink of an eye.. or two?

Outdoor Billboard (1–30 minutes)

In bad traffic up to 30 minutes and without maybe less than a minute? Quite effective though as drivers usually are focused on the road and its surroundings and not so much engaged in multi tasking (unless I’m on the phone).

Direct Mail (0–15 seconds)

In most cases 0 seconds since I have an aggressive email spam filter, for those that don’t maybe up to 15 seconds, which includes the time it takes to hit delete.

Point-of-Sale Executions (< 1 minute)

Although a lot of marketing budget these days goes to the retail environment (where most money returns a loss for both manufacturer and retailer) the time you interact with a Point of Sale execution might be less than a minute? Auto Pilot behavior in stores and the fact that grocery shopping is not that fun, makes sure you don’t spend that much time in a shop.

So, how does Packaging hold up?

Ok, now it’s time to look at some popular product categories to see how packaging compares when it comes to time spend with user.

A Water Bottle (multiple hours / day)

Depending on my thirst levels it’ll take me anywhere from 2 minutes up to 45 minutes to finish a 330ml drink. When in the office I’ve noticed there’s almost always a water bottle standing on my desk and I’m in the office for at least 8 hours a day. When I get home a small bottle is replaced by a big bottle, which in most cases will be within arms reach until bedtime. Perhaps I drink too much, but water bottles spend almost the entire day with me.

A Pack of Gum (8 hours in your back pocket?)

From the moment its bought at the local 7-eleven until its finishes that pack of gum usually travels with me in my back pocket. When in the office it’ll be laying on my desk most of the time. At home however we disconnect and that pack of gum disappears into the key tray ready to be taken on the next working day. Given that our relationship only exists in the office it’s limited to max. 4–6 hours of desktime where it’s within the reach of my eye

A Bottle of Shampoo (2x 20 minutes / day?)

Most times we meet twice a day. Granted in the morning my eyes might be closed but I’ll find that bottle blindly. On more uneventful occasions I’ve found myself reading that bottle front to back — they should put some cartoons on the back like with cereal packs! Average time spend: 20 minutes, twice a day?

Toothpaste (6 minutes / day?)

While we have some very hygienic people in the office who probably brush 3–4x per day this usually happens right after shower time. I do my best to hit 3 minutes and the tube is very close to me during that time.

Cigarettes (I don’t smoke..)

0 seconds for me as I don’t smoke, but some of the nicotein addicts in the office have that pack with the scary eye ball picture looking back at them perhaps most hours of the working day. At home, I guess those packs spend the same time with them as my water bottle does with me, so pretty much every waking moment!

A Box of Tissues (8 hours during the working day)

Especially during Flu season I tend to develop strong relations with my tissue box, however even in the normal season there’s pretty much always a box within eyes reach. Especially in the office, where I have one next to my desk! At home the attempts by Kleenex to make those packs fit the interior design of the house are missed, as my box goes in a holder so it’s invisible at home!

A Bottle of Ketchup( 1–3 hours)

I must admit I’m more of a mayonnaise person, but every time i open the fridge that ketchup bottle waves hello. When it is Sausage Sunday however the iconic red bottle proudly makes its way to the table to be present during the full course of the meal — perhaps 1–1.5 hour and if we’re lazy clearing the table perhaps up to 3 hours.

The clear Winner of our Time Battle? Packaging!

Since packaging is so close to the actual product, packs tend to spend quite a bit of time with consumers. If effective branding is about forming relationships than smart packaging designs are ideal to transmit branded messages to its users, while leveraging the amount of time they spend with their users.

Since Packaging Design Spends most Time with Users it’s the Perfect Marketing Tool to help you build Real Brand Relationships!

Of course this article doesn’t take into account other important factors like frequency, intensity and relevance of a message that also contribute to the effectiveness of a marketing instrument and I’ve also conveniently ignored the functions of the instruments such as creating awareness and interest, triggering purchase and creating loyalty, however from the perspective of time you spend with an item packaging surely seems like a perfect tool able to form branded relationships with its users.

Need some help Creating Packs that Connect?

We are more than happy to give relationship advice to your brand and help you figure out how your brand can spend more time with your user! Do your relationship efforts need a boost, do you want to spice things up a bit or are you looking to reconnect with a lost love? Don’t hesitate to get in touch!