Alan Gilbody

Always use every square inch of pack.

The backing card that incorporates the euro hook nanger, is often an area of dead space.

It can be tricky to put any communication in because of the ‘Euro Hook’ aperture, but check out this fantastic use of the backing card that incorporate the photo that pops out the top of the Polaroid camera.

With packaging, it’s important to utilise every square centimetre of available canvas. I don’t mean cram stuff into every gap, but be efficient and use the space wisely.

If a face is not big enough for adding a narrative or product benefits, always look for a secondary use that works with the product story.

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Marketing

Firstly, happy New Year to you all, I hope you had a great break!

Right then, let’s get back to it.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the technology aisle in the supermarket is much in need of some love and attention. January is often a dry month for many wishing to turn their backs on the Christmas excesses, so a great opportunity for drinks tech to catch new consumers to looking for alcohol, free or soft drink alternatives.

I think that Soda Stream, a brand that’s been around since the 70s is missing a bit of a trick here in failing to talk more about the product experience on pack.

They’re obviously up against the big name carbonates so have some hefty competition on their hands, but unfortunately I don’t think they’re going to get far with this offering.

At first glance, it looks more like the outer packaging for a lava lamp or something to stick in the tropical fish tank?!

The pack provides a chance to focus on what you do well, your key benefit. In Soda Streams instance, I think this could be the whole ceremony of preparation.

One of the key points that differentiates it from the big carbonates is the fact you have to make it yourself, and when you look at the consumer trends of personalisation and tailoring products to suits specific needs, this seems an opportunity missed.

Is it time for them to ‘get busy with the fizzy’, again?

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Marketing

So, this just appeared in my local store and it left me scratching my head, a little.

Celebrity ties on packaging are quite common place, but I couldn’t quite see the relevance of plonking Elton on Marmite here.

Granted he can be seen as a little ‘Marmite’, and yes, he is from Pinner, which is where the store is located, but I was struggling to make the link. This is hugely important for both the consumer and I suppose, the artist.

It was only when I went online and looked into this offering a little more, I discovered that it was to promote the Elton John AIDS foundation.

If a brand is going to champion a good cause, it’s so important to lead with that on the front of the pack.

Never be vague or the consumer may make up the story, and it may not be the right one!

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Marketing

Ahhhhh, the party season is upon us and nothing says party like a ‘party keg’ of beer.

I stumbled across this image of generic-looking beer kegs from the 70s or early 80s. It made me realize just how far beer branding and marketing has come.

Back then, most beer brands lacked any unique identity. Squint your eyes and you likely couldn’t tell one brand from another. They failed to tell any story about why a drinker should choose their beer.

Today’s beer market couldn’t be more different.

It just goes to show that, especially for experience products like beer that rely a lot on gut-feel and emotion when making a purchase decision, having an intriguing story and dialed-in branding is vital. You need the full brand experience – standout design, compelling origin story, alignment to drinker lifestyles and values – to truly resonate with consumers browsing crowded store shelves or bar taps.

So as you stock up on beer for your upcoming celebrations, take a moment to appreciate just how far marketing innovation has come since the days of the plain silver kegs!

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #CraftBeer

New research reveals that how plant-based and vegan packaging are labeled significantly impacts whether omnivores choose them.

The study asked over 7,000 people to pick either a vegan or meat/dairy food basket. The catch? The vegan basket was randomly labeled as “vegan,” “plant-based,” “healthy,” “sustainable,” or “healthy and sustainable.”

The results showed people were far more likely to opt for the non-meat basket when it emphasized positive attributes like health and sustainability rather than its vegan status.

Just 20% selected it when labeled “vegan,” but 42-44% chose it for eco-conscious and wellness-focused descriptions. Even “plant-based” outperformed “vegan.” Simply avoiding the term “vegan” also helps

Meat-eaters displayed particular bias against the v-word. However, framing the same foods as personally or environmentally beneficial overrides this instinct.

This indicates that leading with health and green merits over moral arguments, and relating plant-based lifestyles to self-care and resource stewardship, can make them more appealing to omnivores.

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Plantbased

Why do plant-based, meat substitute products take their naming strategy directly from meat?

It seems to be selling the product in on something that it clearly isn’t and that it would prefer to be a bus ride away from.

I appreciate that they need to signal what they are replacing, however, I wonder whether this sector could benefit from creating a more own-able, non-meat related language to describe the formats?

Have a look at this example from Paxo, where the descriptor leads on ‘Meatballs’ on a ‘meat-free’ product.

Maybe this is only temporary and utilised to get consumers used to these new formats.

That said, it could also be the perfect time to create a whole new sector language to entice consumers. Something a little more ownable and attributable directly to the meat free space?

The brand that does this would be the pioneer and pathfinder in the space.

Consumers make snap decisions when decoding a pack so always make sure that what they decode helps position the brand in front of the competition.

Own that sector.

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Plantbased

Don’t let taste appeal be the compromise for functionality.

It’s often very difficult to stand out in the cereal aisle. The brand in here are stewn with vivid colourways and animated graphics. It’s more like walking into a Nickelodeon TV studio than a supermarket.

Surreal has tried to take on some of the big players here with its pack design and latest festive flavour offering, providing quite a challenge to both the inquisitive consumer and the taste buds.

Taste appeal (and increasingly healthiness) is incredibly important in this sector especially to combat the artificial colour-ways of some of the products.

If, as here, there is a fantastic functional benefit to the product, always ensure taste is not seen as a compromise to this added functionality.

Whilst it’s great to offer up something completely different to a sector, I’m not convinced the packaging design captures the right amount of desirability expected by a new consumer.

Challenge the consumer to excite them but always make the product feel like a tasty reward.

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #health

In the battle of the Christmas chocolates, there is one clear winner so far, at least in my local store anyway.

How much of this is down to brand and how much is down to actual love of the product is open for debate, but it would seem that Mars are winning hands down in this instance.

The thing that struck me here, is actual consumer perception when you have depleted stocks of one and overstocking of another.

It’s sometimes calls into question perceived quality credentials of one brand over the other. We are all very tribal by instinct so consumers can have a tendency to follow what other consumers do so as not to miss out.

From a brand communication point of view, this definitely works to Mars favour!

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Marketing

Ensure your flavour extension looks like part of the range.

You may have seen my previous, rather critical post about it After Eight’s Fine Sticks Packaging design. Nestlé’s very confusing, chocolate mint brand extension

Safe to say, it filled me with an equal sense of bamboozlement when I saw this extension into an orange mint version.

Now, flavour extensions, need to be empathetic with the parent product. They need to look and feel like part of the range and ensure that the flavour communication has the same tone of voice as that of the parent brand.

This however, feels like a ghost of Christmas past, well the early 90s anyway. The brand architecture is out of the window and a font has been chosen for the flavour communication that would be more at home on an ibuprofen pack.

Pack architecture needs to be crafted in such a way as to allow extensions into other flavours. This however, feels as though David Dickinson has been out and found a picture frame on Bargain Hunt to plonk the parent pack in in!?

Every flavour extension or product extension needs to borrow from the tone of voice of the parent pack in order to help support what the brand stands for. Otherwise you create a bit of a clash that looks like it doesn’t belong.

I’m going to grab myself a coffee and take a few deep breaths!

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Marketing

This was quite a surprise to see.

In packaging design, we are used to dealing with awkward canvases and having to try and tell a compelling brand story, complete with individual product stories on a tiny label. But that’s the art of it.

The consumer has a very little time to scan the fixture and make an informed buying decision based on the communication to hand. So it is important that what space you have, works hard.

Seeing these neck tags on a premium spirit, seems to be an admission that the pack design didn’t work hard enough on its own.

A premium spirit should look like an object of desire, overloading it with additional extra communication that seems to be a bolted on afterthought, has a tendency to devalue the product and brand.

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Marketing