Leverage the Power of Packaging and Neuroscience to Emotionally Connect with Consumers
When Packaging Becomes The Physical Expression Of The Brand
Brands can define how they want people to feel. The harder challenge is turning that emotional intention first into a distinctive strategy and positioning—and then into something consumers can immediately see, touch and experience. Packaging is one of the most powerful places where this journey from intangible meaning to physical reality can happen.
As the collaboration between BRAND AVIATORS® and O-I Glass evolved, the thinking behind THE WHEEL OF MOTIVES® began to influence not only individual packaging concepts, but a broader philosophy about the strategic role of packaging itself.
In this article, Arnaud Aujouannet, then Senior Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at O-I, explains why packaging should not be treated as the final, decorative step of brand development. It is the physical representation of the brand—encountered at the point of choice and capable of shaping expectations about the product before it is even experienced.
Drawing on biology, neuroscience, multisensory perception and the 12 Fundamental Human Motives of THE WHEEL OF MOTIVES®, the article explores how emotional meaning can be given structure. A fundamental motive can help define what the brand should stand for, the emotional territory it can own and how it should be positioned.
The next question is physical: what should that positioning look and feel like?
Shape, curves, colors, textures, materials, weight, touch and sound all send signals that the brain interprets—often automatically and outside conscious awareness. When these signals are systematically aligned around the same underlying motive, packaging can do much more than attract attention. It can communicate identity, reinforce positioning and make the brand's emotional DNA physically and sensorially recognizable.
This reverses the conventional process. Rather than designing packaging first and then measuring or rationalizing the emotions it generates, the emotional strategy becomes an input into what gets designed from the beginning.
In this way, THE WHEEL OF MOTIVES® creates a bridge between two worlds that businesses often separate: the strategic world of what a brand should mean and the physical world of what consumers actually encounter. An intangible emotional territory can move from human motivation, to positioning, to the tangible signals of the package.
The article captures a central principle that emerged from our work with O-I:
Packaging should not simply carry the brand. It should embody it.
Or, as we would later express it:
Positioning is the soul of the brand. Packaging is its body.