Branding

Here’s a quick test, stare at this pack for four seconds and tell me is it veggie, vegan or meat?

Much of the communication on packaging is subliminal, the choice of brand colour in the background, the presentation of food and particularly in this instance the naming strategy.

They conjur up a particular tone of voice to match the propoition and help convey information to the consumer.

On this specific pack, most of these cues lead you in the direction of ‘meat’ or at least they did for me.

The key consumer for this product has made a conscious decision not to eat meat so it feels very confusing why the signposts I listed above have been used as part of the communication strategy.

Your brand should be clear and honest with the consumer. It should tell them what they’re getting rather than allude towards something it’s not.

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Marketing

Making FMCG products that are relatable and relevant to consumers is your brands chief task.

If consumers don’t understand what something is or were and how it is used, they are less likely to engage.

Have a look at this example from Rentokil. The brand although synonymous with pest control has caused a bit of confusion and head scratching here I feel.

Firstly, it’s buried the sub brand ‘Insectrol’ into the product descriptor by using the same typeface as the descriptor. This creates neither a distinct sub-brand OR helps describe what the product is.

Combined with this, is some pretty scary iconography that looks more at home in a GCSE biology textbook. Will consumers actually know what each of these beasties are? What is the benefit of this over a competitor?

If you want to remain the lead brand in this area, you have an obligation to explain clearly to the consumer why you are the gold standard.

When you’ve got a small and awkward canvas you need to be immediate and create the product consumers ‘reach for’ rather than ‘run from’.

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Are you behaving like a product or like a brand?

The chances are, if you look like everything else that’s out there you’re following the category cues of a product rather than building in differentiation and an engaging consumer story.

Take these three examples situated on a shelf next to one another.

They’re in the same packaging format. They follow the same packaging architecture and they utilise pretty much the same style and content in their photography.

So why would I choose one of the other?

And here’s the big challenge, how would you remember as a consumer which one you bought last time?

Create an emotional connection and win the consumer. Follow the crowd and disappear into the crowd.

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In response to the global cost of living narrative, Amazon are lowering prices on thousands of grocery items and implementing their own private label food brand called Amazon saver.

As you would expect this is very much a no frills offering to match the no frills price point but I think they’re missing a trick here.

There are private label brands like Asda essentials here in the UK that have managed to introduce a joyous, honest and optimistic tone of voice reassuring consumers about their purchase. This design is rooted in removing consumer embarrassment when selecting the products. 

And this is exactly where I think Amazon have gone wrong. They’ve relied on a somewhat aggressive bold colour, a stock library product shot and generic naming strategy across the entire line. This renders the range quite devoid of both personality and potential connection with the consumer.

Personality is important, that’s how you engage with the consumer is how you get them to sign up to the fact that even though this may be a value based proposition, they can be assured that there is no compromise on taste or quality in choosing these above the big brands.

Stripping back price shouldn’t mean stripping back personality, in fact, it should mean the opposite. These products need to work much harder to fight for store cupboard space.

If the product is great, consumers will come back for more but you’ve got to entice them first.

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T’is the season to be sniffly. As the temperatures drop, and the daylight hours fade, cold and flu season starts to rear is ugly head again!

With bleary eyes and a nose running like Niagara Falls, there is nothing you want more than to pop into the local chemist and navigate the fixture without a fuss and grab the one that best suits your needs.

This has always been a bit of an issue for cold and flu treatments, I’ve worked on many over the years and they all seem to suffer with the same old problem. They leave the consumer saying, “What does that one do?”

Claim is king, although you wouldn’t think that when you look at some of the packs. The active ingredients seem to take centre stage above and beyond any of the apparent benefits.

Clearly, somebody with a clipboard in a grey office somewhere needs to rubber stamp these, but it does seem to be getting more bonkers by the year at the expense of the consumer. Why do the actives need to be so big?

Have a look at this example from Lemsip, where you need to be actually sat on the shelf in order to decipher any of the benefits on the pack.

Whilst the big brands may endeavour to offer relief for some of the symptoms of this seasonal trauma, they don’t seem to have cracked solving some of the issues of legibility.

Always ensure that the most important information is made accessible. Empathy and action rule for brands that need to cue efficacy.

#PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #health, #Marketing

Craft and consideration are hugely important, especially in the Beer category.

It communicates authenticity and a respect of time honoured traditional brewing methods.

There seems to have been a trend over the last few years of stripping things back which has sometimes meant taking the pedigree and prestige out of brands in favour of a more simplistic, look and feel, often to the detriment of the brand.

There are examples, such as the one attached that seem to remove this consideration and expertise from the illustration to the detriment of the brand. If the style doesn’t fit as here, it works against this.

Some of this could be down to following design trends, but some of it is also down to budgetary restrictions. Illustrations of brand icons are normally done by employing illustrators that are experts in their field. These illustrators can create powerful memorable icons that support the brand and are crafted in a particular style. Where budgets are an issue, these illustrations are sometimes tackled in-house rather than using an external illustrator.

Whilst it may be cost effective and remove a pair of hands from the invoice, it also removes some of that expertise for the brand communication.

If craft is important, allow budget for bespoke illustration.

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To the uninitiated, shopping in Halfords is akin to trying to crack quantum cryptography.

Finding the right product to meet your needs requires a certain shall we say level of knowledge.

Whilst Halfords have introduced an ‘add your registration plate’ offering onto the website so that you can navigate to the product that best meets your needs and matches your car, I do think the packs in store could go a long way to facilitating this.

Have a look at this engine cleaner I found. The ‘what do you do with it’ communication seems to be relegated to an afterthought sticker applied to the neck of the bottle. On some varieties it isn’t even on there.

It is unclear whether this is intentional or whether users have requested this, nevertheless it’s something that could be introduced better through narrative or simple iconography onto the front of the main label.

If you make things easy for a consumer they’ll always gravitate to products within your portfolio, as it quickly communicates a level of expertise that they don’t have.
 

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As the old adage goes, form follows function. That said, focusing too much on the functionality leaves no room for creating an emotional connection with the consumer.

Paint is a slightly odd product because whilst it’s arguably seen as a home lifestyle product it’s not something that features hugely on the packaging. An eggshell white is an eggshell white after all so why would you buy one product over the other?

Certain brands such as Dulux position themselves as masters of colour, but there are brands such as Leyland Paints, that from a consumer point of view, don’t have a ‘reason to believe’ and therefore don’t create an emotional connection with the consumer.

This leaves you thinking why buy their paint above and beyond a cheaper own brand version?

Having a key claim or product truth evident on pack reassures the consumer and points them in your direction.

It creates differentiation and forms more of a unique story about the benefits of your products, and how it will make a consumer feel once they’ve used it.

Utilised well this can form part of the key decision-making criteria. 

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If your brand is lucky to have pedigree and heritage, it’s always advantageous to show this off.

From a consumer perspective it adds credibility. If you’ve been around for donkeys years chances are, there’s something to trust.

I stumbled across this brand recently and for me there were a couple of things that it lacked. The first, as above is to dial up, its heritage. The brand has been around since 1921 and its safe to say, there aren’t many brands on the shelf that can use that in their bragging rights!

The other factor, and this is a consistent theme in this sector and that’s a lack of personality.

The brand prides itself on its organic origins but seems to have utilised a logo type that feels like it’s been scratched into the back of a bus seat on the top deck number 29 bus.

The choice of colour also works against its natural and organic origins. Natural colours tend to be more muted, much less vivid. This choice of Green appears much more ‘chemical’, the opposite of what it should be trying to signpost.

The choice of logotype and colour, although small can make a huge difference in trying to successfully communicate what you do well. Introducing heritage then cements that with trust.

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He is a great example of how if you don’t get your pack architecture and communication right, you can easily disappear on shelf.

Slimfast has two fundamental problems. Firstly, for a functional food it lacks a huge amount of appetite appeal and desire.

Secondly, as this example shows, there is a huge amount of dead space on the pack which is somewhat accentuated when the design is on an awkward shrink sleeve.

The first point is probably due to the background colour being too similar to the product so that there is no contrast. Colour combinations and variations can be a great way to introduce appetite appeal. In this instance it becomes quite monotone and bland.

The second point can be addressed, by reworking the pack architecture so that the logo creates much more punch. As you can see in this image, when the pack is placed on the middle shelf below ticket strip much of the logo is thrown into shade.

The other big issue here is that it doesn’t highlight what the main benefit is for the consumer.

Clearly people know the Slimfast brand, however why should I buy this product above and beyond a supermarket own brand equivalent?

That is a tricky question to answer and if we mere mortals, that have been staring at this for the last two or three minutes don’t know the answer, then you can be sure your consumer won’t know either.

#BrandDesign, #PackagingDesign, #Packaging, #Marketing