Packaging is increasingly becoming part of a product’s performance rather than simply a vehicle for branding and claims, according to Christopher Sanderson, co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of The Future Laboratory.
Sanderson, who will speak at London Packaging Week, argues that changing consumer expectations are creating an “age of proof” in which brands must provide clearer evidence of efficacy, sustainability and value.
The shift is particularly visible in health, beauty and wellness, where consumers are becoming more sceptical of broad terms such as “natural” and “clean” and are instead looking for demonstrable results.
“What’s really interesting at the moment is that we’re seeing almost a fundamental reset within the beauty and wellness categories,” Sanderson said. “And that reset is all around efficacy. Now it’s about demonstrable effect.”
This increased focus on evidence is also changing the sources consumers trust. Sanderson said celebrity endorsements and conventional influencer marketing were losing authority in wellness categories as consumers turned towards verified experts, accredited communities and clinical information.
For packaging producers and brand owners, the development has implications beyond the information printed on a pack. Packaging materials, structures and formats are increasingly expected to contribute directly to product protection, performance, convenience or reuse.
“I think packaging is becoming more proactive in its ability not just to communicate what the brand stands for, but to demonstrate its function as part of what the brand delivers,” Sanderson said. “It stops communicating about the product and starts being the product.”
Packaging can therefore provide physical evidence that supports a brand’s wider promises. This may include maintaining product stability, improving usability or enabling reuse, rather than relying solely on written claims.
The same principle applies to sustainability. Sanderson said environmental considerations were increasingly tied to commercial and operational performance rather than treated only as questions of corporate responsibility.
“In increasingly squeezed categories, the question of how you produce packaging that both appeals to a consumer but also mitigates cost is absolutely paramount,” he said. “It’s no longer a moral question. It’s EBITDA. It’s operational reality.”
The Future Laboratory studies emerging behaviours among innovators and early adopters to assess how wider consumer expectations may develop. Sanderson warned that many businesses wait until a trend has entered the mainstream before responding, by which point early adopters may already have moved on.
The growing use of artificial intelligence and consumer data is also allowing brands to conduct research at a greater scale. However, Sanderson said trust would remain a central issue, particularly where personal health information was involved.
Despite the stronger emphasis on performance and evidence, he does not expect aesthetics to become less important. Instead, visual design will increasingly need to support a clear functional purpose.
“This doesn’t mean packaging stops being beautiful,” Sanderson said. “It means beauty has to do something.”
Sanderson will explore these themes during his London Packaging Week presentation on packaging for the age of functional health.
