Branding

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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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.

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