Alan Gilbody

There are lots of brands that consumers associate with a recognisable delivery mechanic.

The Coca-Cola bottle or the Tic Tac box for example. All of these formats are great visual shortcuts to the brand and help differentiate them from the competition.

If you’re the owner one of these unique little assets it’s always advisable to use it as part of your communication.

Take Yakult for example, they were pretty much the first little bottle of gut friendly bacteria and that’s something to be proud of. Consumers instantly recognise the angular, signature one shot bottle.

That said, on their outer pack, they seem to disguise the shot bottle by using the same colour as the background, which from a distance, tends to diminish its impact somewhat.

These unique little assets are hard-fought for many brands, if your brand is associated with one them, you’re in one of the lucky few and should showcase in all its glory!

#Packaging, #Marketing, #Design, #Branding

Negative space on pack is powerful if used well, but don’t let its usage be detrimental to your communication

A little moment of calm on packaging can be a great way to own the shelf. It gives somewhere for the eye to rest and can aid in shelf blocking.

However, this should never compromise the rest of the communication on pack. Have a look at this example from Hartleys. All the communication has been squished into a small area on the front of the packaging making it impossible to read at a distance.

The net result is that the whole pack becomes unbalanced and the information inaccessible with the sugar-free communication taking more of a lead than the brand communication part.

Brands should always adapt their communication to fit whatever canvas it’s going on. What may work on a pot doesn’t necessarily work on an outer carton.

Negative space can be an incredibly useful tool but never leave the communication fighting over the remaining space.

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Capturing tradition and authenticity can be a superpower when done well. Particularly if your brand has a particular pedigree or provenance.

The downside however, is that sometimes this can cause brands to look a little dusty and old-fashioned to f not handled correctly.

It’s a very fine balancing line.

Have a look at this brand for a great case in point. While it is arguably steeped in heritage and provenance, because it has been executed with both feet in the past, it looks like it’s from the 70s or 80s.

Use tradition if it’s relevant to your brand but always make sure it’s balanced in a contemporary. A dated brand will never capture the demanding and evolved tastebuds of today.

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Woah woah! Slow down! One thing at a time

Some packs bombard you with messaging and it can be too muck to take in.

Packs become arduous and challenging to decode with important information getting lost.

Have a look at this from the tinned powerhouse, Princes. It is quite literally information overload.

So much so that the brand gets lost and multiple claims and benefits jostle for the consumers attention.

What should be an easy to decode canvas turns into a pound shop window!

Consumers only have about 5-7 seconds to scan the shelf and make a decision. Overload them with information and they’ll look elsewhere.

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A question for you. What is it that first stands out on this SRP?

Is it the brand logo? Is it plant based? Is it the colour or possibly the product descriptor?

Possibly none of the above, in fact it’s safe to say that it’s incredibly confusing as to what lies within!

The pack design and the SRP should work in synergy. They should work as a coherent design system that allows immediate recognition and instant decoding by the consumer.

Cover over the brand logo on the pack and the system is clearly not optimised.

Care should always be taken to ensure that a robust design system is created that allows all of these components to work together. That’s what builds recognition and stronger brand recall.

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One thing that functional snacks often forget is taste appeal.

Taste is often compromised in favour of dialling up the functional benefit and when the competition in this sector in increasing exponentially, taste credentials can be your best friend and key differentiator.

Take a look at this example from Grenade. From memory, Grenade was one of the first functional protein snack launches, but whilst the competition have moved in favour of increased health benefits, Grenade has been firmly stuck in its energy laden past.

It simply doesn’t scream yummy. The product shot is far too small to make out any of the textured detail and looks incredibly flat and ‘manufactured’

This has always tended to make it feel like the most artificial option when in fact it’s actually a high-quality product.

But it’s not just the taste appeal that it lacks. If the main benefit is high protein and lower sugar, it’s incredibly important to convey to the consumer exactly how much protein you’re giving them in a clear and succinct way.

#Design, #Marketing, #Packaging, #Branding

Sometimes all the information is on there but how it’s presented lets the brand down.

I was in the garden centre this weekend and as an amateur gardener, is often hard to work out exactly what you need.

Often, as with the pack below, all the information is there but as you scan the shelves, your eye tends to rest on products that not just meet your need, but also cue how you will feel after the product has done its magic.

Take this plant feed from Vitax. The key benefit is presented on the packs directly underneath the logo however because the tone of voice is far too functional and the emotion and joy is missed they look more like a treatment for something bad rather than the promise of something good.

Remember, the consumer decides emotionally and justifies logically, so always make sure you capture exactly how it will make them feel with as much gusto as what it does!

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Here’s an interesting example of making a bit of noise to stand out.

There are 2 areas to note where this has been used efficiently. Firstly on the can, the logo is positioned at an angle. Breaking symmetry like this causes the eye to rest when you scan across a busy fixture.

It’s a fantastic way to break from the normal horizontal placement of logotypes, it also has the added advantage that you can make logos ever so slightly larger on this increased canvas.

The other area to note is the SRP. Normally these often forgotten areas of the design system feature a very lacklustre logo which in many cases are smaller than the actual logo on the pack

Here however, it’s been tiled, repeated and wiggled round multiple angles, again breaking the symmetry, unweighting the noise and stand out.

If you’ve got something interesting to say, always be bold!

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Characters on pack should always be engaging, recognisable and help convey the brand story.

A good character works just as well off pack as it does on pack to help cue and recall the brand in the mind of the consumer.

As with a brand story, differentiation and uniqueness are key in facilitating this. Plonking some sunglasses on a lemon doesn’t cut it. Take this character off pack and it could belong to any brand.

We have created lots of characters over the years, from Freddo Frog through to the Aquafresh Nurdles on the kids range. Front of mind each time was giving them a key role to play.

In the case of Aquafresh, the Nurdles were based on the three striped Aquafresh toothpaste icon and had two main roles to play in the brand communication.

Firstly, they were used to help educate parents on the key stages of development in kids teeth and secondly to create relatable personalities for the kids to engage with.

So successful were these that they even have their own cartoon show!

Give the character a role and ensure they are created with distinctive assets that you could only ever attribute to that brand and they will help sell your product like miniature animated salesman.

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Never forget which arena you are operating in.

There are lots of brands that have seen huge success by getting consumers to sign up to subscription models on their own website.

These brands have had huge support on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok because they offer something very different to the consumer.

One such example is natural deodorant brand Fussy.

The big issue some of these brands have is when they move from an online subscription model to the in-store environment using exactly the same Pack design and brand architecture.

Whilst these may work in small digital images they don’t translate particularly well to the supermarket shelves where they’re up against some fairly fierce competition with brands designed to stand out. In this instance Fussy doesn’t.

Clearly it makes no sense for brands to have two different liveries for two different environments so it always makes sense as this transition is happening to reevaluate what you’ve got and make it work in all environments

This doesn’t mean starting from scratch. It’s often about taking what you have and making it work harder.

Remember, the consumer always wants to know what need of theirs are you meeting and why are you the best brand to solve this problem.

#Marketing, #Design, #Branding, #Packaging