Joy of unboxing: Packaging's powerful pull for branding, bonding and beyond

Let's recognise the role of the shipping box in brand communication, customer engagement and community building because the humble box is, indeed, a hero of online commerce

By Keyoor Purani and Ameya Agrawal

Published: Jan 9, 2025 02:09:11 PM IST

Updated: Jan 9, 2025 02:24:19 PM IST

With the surge in online shopping, the focus has dramatically shifted towards the unboxing experience at home, spotlighting the dual role of secondary and tertiary packaging. Image: Shutterstock

In the vast ocean of marketing strategies, one unsung hero often floats under the radar: packaging. It's not just a vessel for the product inside anymore but a crucial piece for building the brand and customer relationships. Traditionally, primary packaging holds the product, secondary packaging contributes to enhanced branding, and tertiary packaging, typically shipping boxes, facilitates physical delivery. In modern retail, secondary packaging, such as shopping bags, plays a primary role, evolving into a powerful branding and customer engagement conduit. And as our shopping habits have shifted more and more online, the shipping box is taking centre stage.

With the Indian online retail industry sitting pretty at about $60 billion last year, predictions are that by 2027, nearly 427 million Indians will be shopping online. That's a whole new universe of buying, selling, and boxing stuff up. The online retail industry has already started recognising the box's pivotal role in the shopping experience, where the act of shopping is experienced more in the anticipation and joy of unboxing than just putting items in the cart. Industry giants have even symbolically embraced this shift, with Amazon updating its app icon from a cart to a box.

Branding and the Box

With the surge in online shopping, the focus has dramatically shifted towards the unboxing experience at home, spotlighting the dual role of secondary and tertiary packaging. In this digital shopping landscape, the shipping box acts as the brand's initial physical touchpoint with the customer. This evolution transforms the shipping box into a branding billboard for the retailer, making a lasting first impression.

The e-commerce giant Amazon has mastered the art of packaging, making its simple, smiley-faced boxes into icons of consumer culture. Unlike digital ads that disappear fast, the box stays in your home, constantly reinforcing the brand's presence. It's common to reuse boxes for storage or moving, each time subtly reminding you of the brand's ubiquity. To keep improving its packaging, Amazon also actively seeks customer feedback.

From unique, colourful box designs to telling stories, delivery-focused brands have always known the importance of boxes for brand building. Domino's, the original delivery expert brand, has been investing strategically in the box design for brand communications. For example, the trimmed-cornered hexagonal pizza boxes have always lent memorability to the brand. Further, Domino's boxes promote the brand in several ways, such as 'two pizza deals' with one red box and one blue box, which bring the logo to life when physically joined together.

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Bonding with the Box

Smart brands know that it isn't just about brand communications; it's also about bonding. Can boxes help make consumers psychologically and/or behaviourally involved and interact with the brand? It's about how a box can evoke feelings, memories, and connections. Amazon has implemented innovative ways of customer interaction with boxes, such as in India, where it shares marketplace seller stories with scannable seller photos in QR format.

Then there's Apple. Steve Jobs believed unboxing was a big part of the consumer experience. That is why an Apple product unboxing experience is meant to excite you. With carefully implemented controlled friction, you are made to anticipate something great and appreciate what you have. And, probably, that is why 87 percent of Apple users keep their boxes instead of throwing them away. With meticulous attention to detail, Apple ensures that every aspect of its packaging becomes a memorable element, and each unboxing event becomes a ritual that evokes an emotional response from buyers. Consumers get involved in unboxing so much that they share their experiences as videos on social media. Apple provides logo stickers in each box that further trigger word of mouth as loyal fans of Apple put them on their cars or bikes.

Going out-of-the-box

Once the brands have realised the strategic role of the box, they can create an avalanche of innovations around the box. For example, companies may consider personalised boxes that are directly printed with your name. What about user-designed boxes? With design challenges, companies can unleash customers' creativity and use packaging to foster a collaborative community.

With growing online retail, in the United States alone, more than 350,000 tons of cardboard boxes are discarded annually. Brands that take their boxes seriously follow responsible practices. In 2022, Domino's started promoting recycling its boxes by featuring recycling messages on top of the pizza boxes and a QR code that took customers to a microsite to help find local recycling guidelines. Samsung's Eco-package concept aims to reduce waste by offering DIY ideas for repurposing leftover TV boxes into valuable household items. Meanwhile, Amazon India's #PledgeToReuse campaign encourages customers to find alternative uses for their delivery boxes instead of throwing them away. Brands may even turn this challenge into a loyalty program and reward for box returns.

Let's recognise the role of the shipping box in brand communication, customer engagement and community building because the humble box is, indeed, a hero of online commerce.

Keyoor Purani is a professor of marketing, and Ameya Agrawal is an MBA at the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode.

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