Alan Gilbody

Something I’ve mentioned before one here is the brands need to explain to the consumer what consumer need they are meeting. However, that shouldn’t be at the expense of communicating what the product is in the first place.

Take this product from Hartley’s for example. ‘More fruit less sugar’ takes centre stage at the expense of poor old ‘jam’ which is buried away in tiny copy at the bottom of the label.

Another factor not helping the consumer decode what the product is that rather than be in a format more recognisable in the sector it’s in a squeezy bottle

There is a balance to be struck between what the product is and why a consumer needs it. Elevating one shouldn’t be at the expense of the other.

#Marketing, #Design, #BrandDesign, #Packaging

When you are up against the big players, performance and efficacy are King. Many own brand products are as good as the big brand competitors. Most consumers are fully aware of this but it’s something that packaging also needs to push.

Have a look at this cleaner from Sainsbury’s.

Compared to the competition, it feels very washed out and so disappears to the back of the shelf. The pack lacks any cues towards efficacy and many of the on-pack elements end up competing as they are executed in a similar way

A device often used on cleaning products is a cleaning swoosh. It communicates effortless and speedy cleaning. However, that clean swoosh has been replaced by an orange smear!

Not really the sort of language you want to use to convince a consumer.

Own brand products may be cheaper, but they have to work twice as hard to convince the consumer that they are a credible alternative

#Marketing, #Design, #BrandDesign, #Packaging

Colour is there to provide recognition, interest and depth. Colour creates that beacon on the shelf to draw the consumer in and quickly identify your pack.

The right choice of colour, or combinations of colours, can also help convey appetite appeal.

Get that Colour choice wrong though and the pack can disappear on shelf amongst all the competition. I saw the attached line extension to Special K yesterday and this suffers from exactly that.

In order to up weight their Crunchy Golden Clusters, the Kellogg’s K, product communication and to some degree the product imagery all disappear onto one level when executed in the same hue. The easily identifiable brand assets lose their shape and form as rather than split the pack into a foreground, midground and background, all assets appear on one level and so end up fighting for attention and recognition. Getting this balance right is incredibly important, especially when viewing from a couple of metres back as you approach the shelf.

Next to other variants in the range the Kellogg’s K almost disappears making it look more like a copycat brand than credible portfolio extension.

Always use colour and contrast wisely. It’s the most powerful tool in grabbing attention, especially if you’ve got something new to shout about.

#Design, #Marketing, #BrandDesign, #Packaging

If you have a unique offering, it’s up to you to tell the consumer what that is. that may seem a very obvious thing to say but there are many brands out there that aren’t fully clear with the consumer.

If the consumer doesn’t know the meaning or origin of something, they may tend to make something up based on their limited understanding.

Take the Pack below for example. On first inspection, because there is nothing obvious on the can you may assume that this is a statement about sustainability or the environment. It’s actually because the coffee is made from green coffee beans!

The next thing you then have to explain to the consumer is what the benefit of it being made from green coffee beans is. These are two incredibly important pieces of information.

If these aren’t presented, then the consumer is going to take the information that is there and make something up based on the assets and communication used.

The other easy error to make is that it’s a derivative of Coca-Cola. Probably because of the lines going up the side of the pack cueing the old Coca-Cola can Design.

So if you don’t explain what makes you different, the consumer may do that work for you and it may be wrong.

#Marketing, #Design, #Sustainability, #Packaging

In my post at the beginning of the week I looked at the difficulties consumers have when Packaging looks too similar on engine oils.

Here’s a similar example in the world of coffee. This brand has decided to take a very monolithic approach which works well to create a wall of similar looking packs but leaves the consumer scratching their head when it comes to navigating that range.

Having packs that look too similar means consumers could select the wrong thing.

Using a very robust monolithic pack architecture means that differentiation needs to work much harder so for instance here whether they’ve used a blue and green to pull a two variants apart, using hues that are further apart would make this much easier for the consumer.

When ranges become big and sprawling this challenge gets even harder as at some point, quite simply, you’ve run out of colours!

Always be the consumers friend and make things easy for them.

#Marketing, #Design, #Branding, #Packaging

If you’ve ever tried to shop for the correct formula of engine oil, you’ll know what a difficult task that can be!

This seemingly impossible task can be made harder if navigating the options is not made easy by the brands. Have a look at this example. A thorough reading of the label leaves the conclusion that both of these are exactly the same Formula, if so why the completely different colour?

At first I thought it might be the same product repackaged in a more category appropriate colour however there doesn’t seem to be a colour associated with a particular variety so the Walkers crisps salt and vinegar versus cheese and onion argument didn’t seem at play here.

If you don’t make things easy for your consumer, they will move on and fast! Nobody wants to risk putting the wrong product into an expensive car engine.

You’re either on the side of the consumer or not.

#Marketing, #Design, #Branding, #Packaging

Bahlsen recently had a change from the iconic big logo pack and have moved to a more left right pack architecture. This makes the logo much smaller than it was previously.

I saw the latest pack in an SRP recently and it shows one of the problems faced by many brands forced to go to a smaller logo shoved over to one side of the pack.

As soon as you popped these into an SRP with their rather unforgiving side panels, important information can get obscured.

it’s again an warning to check every touch point in every part of the design system to make sure everything is working asynchronously.

#Marketing, #Design, #BrandDesign, #Packaging

Meat packaging has long followed a familiar formula. A large window exposes the raw product, allowing shoppers to assess quality and freshness at a glance. This transparency serves an important purpose. Consumers want reassurance about what they are buying. Yet from a marketing perspective, it often works against the product itself.

Raw meat rarely represents the end experience people are actually purchasing. The finished dish, the flavour, the occasion, and the enjoyment at the table are what ultimately drive choice. When most of the pack is dedicated to showing the raw state, the packaging misses an opportunity to inspire the shopper

At the same time, labels are frequently doing the heavy lifting in a very small and cramped space. Essential information is often presented in dense, small text, leaving limited room for storytelling, brand differentiation, or emotional engagement. The result is a similar visual language across both own label and branded products, where compliance and visibility outweigh persuasion and individuality.

This creates a significant opportunity. The physical space on pack is valuable real estate that can do more than simply inform. It can help consumers imagine the meal, build confidence in quality, and create a stronger connection with the brand.

For brands willing to rethink how this space is used, there is real potential to entice consumers, redefine expectations, and ultimately claim leadership within the sector.

#Marketing, #Design, #Branding, #Packaging

The Ineos packs have had an update to the back design.

Regular readers of my posts may remember my thoughts on the previous iteration being to utilitarian and monolithic design across all sectors making it very confusing to navigate between different product ranges. Whilst the latest iteration has moved away from some of the functionality of it predecessor in both graphics and copy, it’s created new problems in an attempt to remedy the old.

The most important aspect to look at here is the logo. The black logo type on the red texture completely disappears in the supermarket environment. Taking a couple of steps back at the fixture renters it almost impossible to make out.

One of the things they struggled to communicate last time was the plant powered aspect. A functional and very utilitarian design tends to work against this more natural proposition.

The plant powered communication has now been relegated to a much smaller area on the base of the label. This makes it hard for not only this element of the back to stand out but with its look and feel still rooted in science and utilitarianism, for it also be believed by the consumer.

So whilst the new design may be a step in the right direction in softening the industrial and scientific approach, it still misses on a few of the aspects that the redesign desperately needed to win over new consumers.

#Marketing, #Design, #Packaging, #Sustainability

Great brands have a story. Without a story, you behaving more like a private label product, and that makes it incredibly tricky to engage with your consumer.

It also makes it very tricky to qualify the higher price point than an own labelled product

I stumbled across this product at the weekend which suffers the very same. At first I thought this was a Sainsbury’s own label product.

It behaves very much like an own label product:

All of the elements such as the logo, the descriptor, and the iconography all compete for attention. They are all executed at the same size, equally space down the pack.

The naming felt generic and gimmicky rather than one that transported you somewhere.

The SRP was blank, this is a fantastic canvas that can be used to communicate the brand story, hold the brand message or contain a call to action.

The only taste cues, the coconut image was hidden behind this wall of blankness.

In short, it screamed private label.

When you are competing against the big players in any sector, it’s important that you catch and hold a consumers attention. You need to be intriguing enough to make them pick the pack up and explore all sides.

That’s when you know you’ve got them hooked.

Miss the story and miss this valuable connection.

#Marketing, #Design, #Branding, #Packaging