Packaging Insights
Plain kraft scores 11% on visual appeal. Here's what scores 75%.
If you asked your creative director to approve a piece of brand collateral that scored 11% on consumer visual appeal, they'd send it back without a second thought.
But that's what most eCommerce brands are shipping inside every box.
Independent research from Michigan State University tested six common internal packaging formats against real consumers. 400+ adults, census-balanced. The question was simple: how visually appealing is each format?
The results weren't close.
What the research actually tested
The MSU study presented consumers with six packaging formats they'd recognize from their own deliveries:
- Bubble wrap
- Plain brown kraft paper
- Crinkle shred
- SpiroPack™
- Colored void fill
- Branded void fill
Each format was evaluated for visual appeal. The most revealing comparison is between the two ends of that range – the format most brands ship today, and the one that outscored every other option.
MSU National Consumer Study, 2026. N=400+ census-balanced US adults.
Plain kraft and bubble wrap – the two formats that dominate most eCommerce fulfillment operations – score at the bottom. Branded void fill that’s custom printed with a brand's colors or logo scores 75%.
That's not a marginal difference. It's a different category of experience.
What 11% actually means
An 11% visual appeal score doesn't mean most consumers disliked the packaging. It means the packaging didn't register as a positive signal at all. It was neutral at best, invisible at worst.
Neutral isn't harmless. In the context of an unboxing moment – a moment the customer has been anticipating since they hit purchase – neutral is a let-down. The emotional arc of receiving something you ordered peaks at the moment the box opens – the part of the experience your customer's brain actually remembers. Plain brown kraft meets that moment with nothing.
The packaging isn't just sitting in the box. It's doing active brand work, whether you designed it to or not. An 11% rating is the score your brand earns when you leave that work to a commodity material.
What 75% looks like in practice
Branded void fill isn't a luxury format reserved for premium gift brands. It's standard void fill – the same basis weights, the same protective function, the same operational footprint – with a brand printed on it.
The consumer response to that difference is a 64-point swing on visual appeal.
"It shows me they're proud of their brand. They're not just selling a product."
– Focus group participant, MSU National Consumer Study, 2026
That quote captures something the numbers make measurable: branded internal packaging isn't just aesthetically better. It communicates intent. It tells the customer that the brand thought about this moment specifically – not just the product inside, but the experience of receiving it.
SatinPack branded void fill is the simplest way to put that 75% inside your own boxes – the same protective void fill your fulfillment operation already runs, printed with your brand. Same pack-out, same basis weights, same protective function. The only thing that changes is the score your packaging earns the moment the box opens.
