Branding

Here is an interesting predicament. Many suncream brands are positioned and targeted towards summer months. They all focus on getting a healthy tan alongside the obvious sun protection message.

But here lies the predicament, with the summer months drawing to a close sales of these products tend to drop as people head to the slopes for the ski season.

To anyone the has ever had goggle marks after a day on the slopes, there is clearly a need for sun protection but the current communication on most brands be that naming or imagery, focuses primarily on summer sunshine and getting a healthy tan. Much less relevant although equally important for those people sliding down a hillside.

I wonder if in order to accommodate this across the whole season, brands should focus more on the benefit of protection rather than ‘summer tanning’ in their communication?

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If I was to say to you what’s the first thing you noticed here, the chances are that you’re not going to say the brand logo.

The fact is with an increasing amount of copycat brands commanding much more importantance in store, the big brands can’t rely solely on a colour in order to signal their presence to a consumer.

Think of your brand logo as the face of your brand, it’s that instantly recognisable set of components that helped differentiate you from those trying to be you.

Where space permits, dial it up and get noticed.

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Ensure that you use every square inch of pack.

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

It can be tricky to put any communication in because of the Euro Hook aperture. However, 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, as here, a face of the pack is not big enough for adding a narrative or product benefits, always look for a secondary use that works with the product story.

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Here’s an interesting example, on how to be transparent with your consumer.

This toothpaste pack explains what each of the ingredients are on the back, where they are derived from and what each does.

In a world where consumers are keen to understand what they are putting in their bodies, this is a great way for a brand to show empathy and transparency.

Ultimately, it builds trust and that is gold dust!

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When looking at value-based product lines you need to ensure that the emphasis is on ‘value’ rather than ‘cheap’.

Appearing too ‘cheap’ is always going to come across to the consumer as a compromise and leave them thinking that it may not clean or work as well as one of the competitors. Therefore it’s important to ensure that great value products are appear as effective as the competition.

This is a challenge we faced a few years ago when we first worked on the initial launch of Cillet Bang, creating a product line extension of products that, although great value, screamed efficacy and hard-working with a transformational end result!.

Have a look at the Elbow Grease brand below. It’s a fantastic range of products but potential consumers could be put off by it’s ‘cheap’ look and feel.

Here the emphasis should be on ‘we do the hard work for you’ aspect utilising the Elbow Grease brand name as an inherent part of what the product line ads. Adding a unique claim to each product, focusing on the end benefit would also help simplify the communication and nod towards the end result

This single-mindedness serves 2 purposes. Firstly, it alludes towards the fact that the product has been created with one purpose in mind, helping to differentiate it from competitors with multiple claims and benefits. Secondly it opens the door to a wider portfolio of products aimed at specific needs.

Never let lower cost, communicate lower efficacy.

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It’s not what you say often, it’s how you say it.

Many brands actually do a pretty good job of having the key benefit front and centre on the pack, the problem actually comes with how that benefit is delivered.

All brands need to have a suitable tone of voice, that is the vehicle on which you will deliver the key brand messaging.

If that tone of voice doesn’t fit the proposition, then it could actually be working against the brand.

By way of an example, have a look at this pack. The 12 hour pain relief is centre stage and easy to extract but instead of talking about the benefit, ‘relief’, the tone of voice feels very functional, very utilitarian and harsh.

This actually works against the key benefit you’re trying to get across to the consumer.

Making the brand mark more empathetic and using iconography that focuses on the ‘relief’ rather than the pain itself would all help build a more soothing and approachable brand image.

Capture the tone of voice correctly and you connect to the consumer in a way that conveys what you’re trying to do and importantly, how.

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Getting orientation correct on cylindrical products is incredibly difficult in store.

You’re relying on the shelf stacker to orientate your product the right way in the first place and you are relying on the customer who picks your product up to put it back facing the correct way.

Have a look at this example of St Moriz tanning cream. Now, there are a couple of key issues here, the first as I mentioned above is the orientation of the logo.

As this is not centred on a cylindrical canvas and positioned on the right, it can have the tendency to disappear around the side of the pack, reducing brand recognition completely.

It is much better on these tight cylindrical surfaces to make sure logos are centralised, especially if they are vertical.

The other point which is a smaller and possibly more subtle one is that white seems an odd choice for a brand that promises to make your skin anything but?

What works on a flat design visual does not always work in 3 dimensions.

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The role of a window on the pack is to show the product off and entice the consumer. The role of the label is to showcase the brand.

Where you have a large window as you can see in this or any jar it is a pretty pointless exercise replicating the product on the label part.

This is for 3 main reasons, firstly and importantly, you’re reducing the amount of brand storytelling area.

Secondly the product is always going to look very different in reality to the visual, leading to confusion and mistrust.

Thirdly, you’re reducing impact on shelf because part of the label that you should reserve for communication disappears into the background product.

Unless you’re going to do something different with the image, such as show the product as a place setting, never waste real estate that you could be using for storytelling and creating impact.

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Here’s an interesting way to look at fragrance naming on personal care products.

Is it real or is it made up? I don’t suppose it matters really as it’s a perfect example of how to tap into creating a desire, by appealing to how a product makes you feel rather than what it smells like.

The smell of a tube of freshly popped tennis balls as always had appeal for your hardened tennis player.

This unique naming strategy captures that moment of freshness when new balls are popped out of the tube.

It’s a fantastic way to subconsciously link a smell to a key benefit of newness and readiness!

Appeal to your consumers through storytelling they can relate to and you can unlock powerful emotion that resonates. 

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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.

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