Consumers can’t be pigeon-holed any longer. Large numbers of them are responding to packaging that feels personal, fits their lifestyles and inspires them. The secret? Speak to and be in sync with your audience, while making each person within the group feel like they are the only person you are speaking to.

It seems that the nature of marketers is to try to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, to the detriment of the brand in the eyes of their target audience. This leads to a watering down of brand values and the lack of a unique brand personality. Package design that tries to be all-inclusive turns brands into commodities.

This discussion isn’t about package segmentation—where a specific branded product line offers a number of varieties to meet various consumers’ needs. This is about developing overarching package design systems to appeal to specific target audiences who are defined not by age groups or stage of life but by the interests of individuals within those groups as well as their lifestyles. Conventional wisdom about demographic groups has to be challenged to package effectively now.