This 3rd in a series of 5 posts powered by JKR looks at how packaging can be a strong weapon in the battle to stand out on shelf versus own label copy-cats.
Andy Knowles of JKR highlights a dangerous trap that many brands fall into: focusing pack design on category codes, not what is unique to your brand. This leads to your brand disappearing in a sea of similarity on the shelf. And this is a bad idea, when you recall that in the first of the series that your brand needs to be 1 in 1000 alternatives that gets picked off the shelf each time a shopper makes a product choice. You're also making it easier for own label brands to do what they love to do: stealing your clothes, cutting the price and knicking your consumers.
To be that 1 in 1000, and make it harder for own label to clone you, it helps to identify and amplify the visual "essence" of your brand: a single minded, powerful visual device that allows consumers to "lock-on" to your product like a heat-seeking missile. This takes courage, as it means stripping away the multitude of secondary messages that gets stuck on packaging these days so you can focus on a single-minded big design idea.
A great example of a brand that JKR helped to take this approach is John West, who sell tinned salmon and tune. They started out with a pack that looked very much like its own label competitors, with nothing distinctive to help it stand out. The new design featured an "wave" device with a jumping salmon, which helped both differentiation and communication of product credentials. It also helps the brand's range look like a true product family.
The new packaging was launched in conjunction with one of my all-time favourite TV commercials, featuring a John West man fighting with a bear for the very best fish. It is a perfect example of telling a product story in an entertaining way, blending product sausage, or salmon in this case, with emotional sizzle.
Like all the brand examples in this series, the new packaging had a positive impact on sales, helping drive growth of 16% and stretching the gap with the number 2 brand considerably.
My wife and I are excuse me, were, big Tropicana ctsuomers. While the redesign is somewhat of a bust, the more disappointing factor about having a generic looking carton, is that the price stayed the same (if not went up, in certain areas). The even MORE frustrating part about Tropicana's lineup, is they removed Low Acid from their selection, the one and only kind we use to purchase. Not good. We now purchase our local grocery store brand. Pepsi's re-branding is not so great either, but I'm not a huge customer of their cola. Mt. Dew now that's another story!
Posted by: Abigail | March 10, 2012 at 03:12 AM
like this packaging example much better. the new look upscales the brand.
Posted by: trish | August 18, 2007 at 07:05 PM