All too often, consumer product companies focus on their product offerings when it comes to innovation. But think about it: how many ground-breaking products entered the marketplace over the past year? Certainly numerous consumer products have featured incremental innovation. But how many are memorable due to being real game changers?

So here’s something worth considering. Package innovations have sometimes become the game changers for brands; not products. It’s time to step back and take a long look at packaging to see what could be dramatically improved. Just because “conventional” category packaging has always been in place, does it necessarily represent the best solution? This isn’t about developing unique structure, new substrates, closures or package attributes for the sole purpose of brand differentiation, although they certainly help. It’s about rethinking packaging based on consumer engagement as well as their current and changing needs, and then delivering it by daring to break out of the expected.

Observing consumers’ interactions with packaging and soliciting input on how it might be innovated is a good starting point. Find out what matters most to consumers who are purchasing products within the category: ease of use? Avoiding wrap rage scenarios? Better maintenance of product integrity? Reusable packaging? Sustainability? When logical, realistic solutions present themselves, brand managers and consumers will wonder why it took so long to achieve them.