Fresher’s Fair is the perfect opportunity for enticing new customers, and establishing your business as a hub for students.

So, how can packaging help you get the most out of this opportunity? Let’s take a look.

Clear Branding

Anyone can sell food, but it’s how you build brand recognition that gets you known.

Thankfully, brand logos and taglines can be printed onto packaging pretty easily, and inexpensively these days.

Brand recognition is particularly important at food fares, as students are often wandering around from stall to stall without really taking in much information. Let’s face it – they’re there for the free stuff.

So if you can get your product clearly branded and recognisable, it’s much more likely to attract the students than lengthy pamphlets or even word of mouth.

Colour Sells

Students are like magpies. If there’s something shiny or colourful, chances are, they’ll be drawn to it.

In a world filled with serious black and white textbooks, it’s important to make your packaging seems fun and light-hearted. Who wants to buy something that screams accountant, or worse, academic?

Packaging should reflect the brand, and if your brand is fun, quirky and light hearted, your colour scheme should reflect that.

Fresher’s Fair is not meant to be taken too seriously, especially with fast food packaging.

With hundreds of brands competing for attention, you’ll need a splash of colour to stand out.

Be Clear!

You may have loads of information about your brand that you’re just dying to tell every single student that crosses your path.

Unfortunately, its Fresher’s Fair. Students do enough reading to last them a life time, and chances are, they don’t fancy reading long and complicated descriptions about what they’re about to eat.

If you do want to describe your brand, make sure it’s kept to a minimum, maybe a few sentences on the outer packaging that sets up your stall. Anything more than that will bore anyone, let alone excitable students.

Don’t Be Too Salesy

Students don’t have a lot money, that’s a fact. If anything, they’re already in debt before they even step foot into Fresher’s Fair.

Thankfully, Fresher’s Fair isn’t about selling, it’s more about getting your brand recognised and building a good student base within the university.

You want your food to be the go-to meal for hangovers, lazy days, or revision break treats.

What you don’t want are students feeling like the food is literally being shoved down their throats with constant sale tactics being printed all over the packaging.

Not only will students barely take in the information, but it’ll also take away the ‘fun’ factor of your brand, and it definitely won’t fit with the light-hearted nature of the fair itself.

Don’t Copy another Brand

A photo posted by KLASIC (@firstchronicles) on

Taking inspiration from a well-established student brand is one thing; outright copying their format and packaging could look a little suspect.

Whether it’s a similar name, colour scheme or tagline, if students see a brand copying another, they won’t hope for an upgraded version of what they know, they’ll probably make light of the situation and regard it as a cheap knock-off, regardless of how true that is.

Instead, focus on building your own student hub, and if your brand does share some similarities with another, sell the differences and improvements that your product holds.

Here are the top 5 tips for packaging your product to perfection for Fresher’s Fair. Whether it’s your first time, or if you’re a seasoned expert, there’s always room for improvement.

For more information on how great packaging can help your brand, take a look at our blogs below.

Festival Food and its Packaging: How Would We Change it?

Paper or Plastic? Why You Should Consider Paper Bags

Perfecting Your Quirky Food Packaging