Driving customer value with impactful packaging

The packaging paradox

How has e-commerce heightened – rather than diminished – the importance of impactful, sustainable packaging?

Florian Wemhoff: Packaging is now more important because of the growth of e-commerce, not despite it. When a consumer chooses a product on a screen, the image, the experience is inherently two-dimensional. They cannot feel, sense, touch, or even smell it as they would when previously buying from a store.

There they might also physically assess a variety of products for attributes they value, maybe trying them out, and judging which one is right for them. That entire dimension is missing when ordering online. 

So, when their online order arrives via the delivery service, the packaging represents the customer’s first physical interaction with both the item and the brand behind it – and that moment is critical. If that packaging involves an intriguing opening mechanism, the handling of different layers of beautiful paper and card wrapping, with its different colors and textures, a welcome letter, stickers, and more, these all trigger some highly positive emotions – anticipation, excitement, affirmation, and positivity toward the brand. 

That’s why the so-called unboxing moment has become so significant – the sensation of the packaging reassures the customer they have absolutely made the right choice in ordering that brand’s product. And that is what brands now want to achieve with the design of their packaging: for the customer to start to fall in love with a product even before they’ve handled it. In that sense, packaging is now an indispensable part of the overall value proposition – at least when well executed.

And you can see in our industry how the unboxing phenomenon is one of the most important factors in a brand’s decision to select high-quality, appealing packaging for their products. A positive emotional response during unboxing not only validates the purchase decision, but often leads customers to share their experience on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok – effectively turning them into brand ambassadors. And every brand is now aiming to create unboxing moments that their customers will want to film and put on social media.

Does that thinking now extend beyond premium items to products that might be seen as commodities, such as electric toothbrushes and bank cards?

Absolutely. Today, every category of products is embracing elevated packaging. Everyone wants to create an impactful unboxing moment. And why wouldn’t they; it just works. I’ve really never heard anything else in feedback from our customers.

Everyone wants iPhone-style controlled-friction box opening, packaging that unfolds like origami, or something equally standout. The objective is to be a “love brand” – one that forges a lasting emotional connection with its customers.

I don’t think you can achieve anything better as a brand. You win a receptive and loyal customer who is also a willing promoter of your products.

Canvas for brand transformation

Are businesses becoming more attuned to the strategic role of packaging?

The phenomenon of the unboxing experience is not totally new; it’s been around for a decade or more. But I think there are several factors that are making packaging – and particularly paper packaging – more and more important.

For the past 15 years, digitalization has been the single biggest buzzword in marketing – and that’s perfectly understandable when businesses are chasing online customers. But now the desire for analog touchpoints is also gaining momentum fast, and the multi-sensory moment of unboxing resonates very well with Gmund’s customers. They know the different elements give them a canvas on which they can transform not only their product, but also their brand. Companies are looking to packaging for competitive edge, to differentiate their brand from competitors.

Material choice is central to this evolution. Paper – with its many, many forms and varieties – is also a prominent factor. Not only does its texture and appearance stir emotions with customers – nowadays they also want their product to be enclosed in wholly sustainable packaging. They don’t want to unwrap a pile of plastic that they then have to guiltily throw away.

And choosing paper depends a bit on your area of business. For example, some of Gmund’s Fullservice customers are startups in areas like cosmetics and nutritional supplements, which makes them very conscious that their customers demand maximum sustainability in packaging, otherwise they simply won’t buy the product.

A surge in paper innovation

How is this demand driving innovation in packaging materials to push the boundaries of what is possible with paper and make the unboxing experience even more memorable and exciting?

At Gmund, innovation is continuous. We are constantly developing new paper experiences through variations in color and fiber compositions, and different material blends. We are innovating to create paper that incorporates cotton fibers, hemp fibers, recycled fabric fibers, wood shavings – even tea residues. By adding such fibers, we create completely unique papers that give a feeling that a customer has never had before. So, it’s paper, but not paper as you know it.

When you talk about paper, people usually think about a standard sheet of white A4. But for us, it’s a versatile material with extraordinary potential. It has so many facets, depending on the weight, thickness, texture, the color, structure – and there are so many ways these can be engineered to achieve distinct effects. It’s unbelievable the things that are possible.

But of course, that effort is not the ultimate goal. We’re always trying to widen the variety of paper that our customers can choose from to ensure we offer paper that stands best for their brand, for the values of their brand, one that makes their products stand out, and one that creates a wow factor when encountered by the customer.

If you want to have something that aligns precisely with your brand values and aesthetic, paper gives you that opportunity. With a nearly inexhaustible range of potential combinations of color, texture, material, and finishing, Gmund offers customers a mind-boggling total of 110,000 paper variants.

But paper packaging is about more than making a connection between customer and product, between customer and brand. The beautiful packaging still needs to provide product security. We have to ensure the packaging will ensure the product reaches the customer in great shape via the parcel service. So, alongside the wow factor, there is always that very technical security consideration.

Packaging economics unwrapped

Can you talk about the economics here because, obviously, a customer could spend any amount developing a completely unique type of packaging. How do you balance design ambition, functionality, and cost when devising packaging that’s meant to deliver that strong emotional impact?

That’s an important point. There is considerable evidence – including ROI studies – to back the argument that more businesses should spend money on packaging, even those in commodity product areas. Because this is going to help sell their products and elevate their brand. But not everyone thinks that. So, there is no single answer on cost, because it strongly depends on the specific customer, their priorities, their business plan, the volumes they need, and so on.

We always have to explore how these priorities work for each customer. A startup trying to make a splash and get its products noticed, for example, may only want to order 1,000 folding boxes. Those might cost a euro or more per box, depending on the sophistication of the production process. But that’s a big difference to an order of 100,000, where the cost might come down to a fraction of a euro per unit for the same high-quality packaging.

Elements of package design

What elements need to come together to create of a truly memorable unboxing experience?

The foundation is always materiality (the selection and use of materials to enhance the aesthetic and functional qualities of the product packaging). How should the paper feel, what fibers should it use, what techniques should we use to create textures? For example, cotton- or cashmere-based paper feels quite different from more standard paper that might be made of eucalyptus.

We also work a lot with techniques such as embossing and debossing that add further haptic feedback to the surface of the packaging. Then there are the different kinds of printing that elevate impact and differentiation – silk screen, metallic, hot foil, spot UV, watermarks, and more – and we explore how these will work best for the outcome the customer has in mind.

Paradoxically, the number of companies that can offer these kinds of analog production techniques has declined dramatically in the past few decades even as demand has grown. But, in contrast, these are aspects that we’re highly specialized in at Gmund.

Making unboxing a phygital experience

You mentioned the focus on digitalization, but many customers also want to include a digital element in their physical packaging – to elevate the unboxing experience with digital links, service activation, or social media engagement. So where does digital integration fit into this world of paper packaging?

Digital elements – most commonly QR codes – provide a seamless bridge between physical and digital experiences. They enable brands to extend engagement beyond the unboxing moment, linking to content, services, or community platforms. Making the connection between the physical packaging and digital activation is a vital part of the customer/product cycle. Everyone today wants to make that connection.

Product “origin stories” centered on sustainability

Are more brands keen to employ a packaging solution that aligns with their own sustainability values and conveys a positive “origin story” both for their products and the way they are packaged?

That’s absolutely the goal. And that’s why I always try to get customers to visit our paper mill by the Tegernsee lake in the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Because when they’ve seen the setting and how we work here, they know our commitment to sustainability is real. We aim to produce the best possible paper in a way that best protects the environment – not least because we are situated in such a beautiful environment. (See box: “The hallmarks of Gmund Paper”)

Our people really value living and working in this environment, and that feeds into our commitment to ensure paper is produced in a highly sustainable way. In our latest collection of paper, for example, we use waste cotton from Italian textile company Manteco to create a paper collection based on a zero-waste principle. We mix that by-product with our long cotton fibers to create even softer, more beautifully haptic paper. It’s the kind of thing we do here all the time. We are constantly experimenting with alternative fiber mixes.

We also work with one of our neighbors: G+D’s banknote subsidiary, Louisenthal, which manufactures specialty paper for banknotes and identification documents worldwide.

Advice for packaging skeptics

So, what advice would you give to a marketing leader who has yet to fully appreciate the power of packaging and its use as a product and brand enhancer?

The most effective approach is experiential. Assuming I get the chance to meet them face to face, I’d simply share some of the different kinds of physical packaging we create so they instantly appreciate its innate tactile appeal. In many cases, that’s all that’s needed – just a piece of 300-gram pure cardboard packaging in one of their hands and plastic-coated packaging in their other. You don’t have to explain more, because they will react emotionally to the paper in their hand and realize their customers will have the same reaction. In their other hand, they will feel nothing because the material feels dead. I haven’t ever experienced anyone who is not responsive to this comparison. 

Do you think a lot of people in marketing still underestimate that power of packaging?

By now, most people in marketing roles have realized its importance. That’s not really the problem. What’s more of a challenge is for them to prioritize paper packaging within the overall product strategy and allocate a larger percentage of the budget to its packaging. They know plastic packaging is cheap and that if you use beautiful paper packaging materials, it’s going to be a larger part of the overall product budget.

But often they overlook the fact that high-quality packaging can justify a price premium and generate organic brand exposure through customer advocacy. Increasingly, packaging is not a cost center, but a strategic investment.

Published: 21/07/2026