The Design Double Whammy

By John-Paul Hunter, Cowan Sydney Creative Director

Everybody loves a big idea. Brands like Nudie, Kellogg’s Nutri-Grain and Pure Blonde immediately spring to mind with their simple yet engaging big brand ‘ideas.’ Brands that successfully harness the power of a cleverly differentiated and relevant ‘idea,’ make it easy for consumers to choose them. Big ideas create desire.

Consistently spreading this big idea across numerous brand touch points all comes down to marketing budgets, but how can we ensure that the big idea is successfully translated into effective packaging design – and therefore actually chosen by the consumer at the point of purchase?

And by effective design, we mean design that works within the context of the ‘one second world’ of the supermarket – the harsh, ultra-competitive environment where brands often have less than a second to shout out and get noticed on shelf.

It’s critical to understand the reality of the supermarket; this canhelp turn a good design into a truly ‘effective’ design. So how shouldwe go about it? How can we take a big brand idea (which more often thannot would have originated from advertising planning sessions) and makeit work on FMCG packaging?

One way of simplifying big brand ideas to work in the supermarketcontext is by understanding semiotics – and more specifically, howbrands can capitalise on the way culture has programmed us to think andact when we see certain shapes, images and colours.

The colour red on a road sign, for example, immediately tells us to becautious and alert. An animal such as a stallion is symbolic ofmasculinity and power (think Ferrari). Sunflowers often representfertility through their round shape and vibrant colour, while beescarry black and yellow stripes to signify danger.

Semiotic cues are all around us but more often or not we don’t actuallyrealise we’re responding to them as they are so deeply embedded in oursubconscious. That’s their power, a power that brand designers canharness to spark the interest of barely conscious shoppers making theirway through that ‘one-second world.’

When executed well, the semiotic power of a pack design can act as aprompt or cue to help shoppers make their purchase decision quicker andeasier. The designer’s role is to understand those colours, shapes,symbols, images and even words that will work on a semiotic level for abrand’s target audience, while also staying true to the brand’s bigidea. If all this is achieved, your brand will reap the rewards.

Coca-Cola’s Mother energy drink is an excellent example of a brandknowing the semiotic power it holds with its target consumers.

The use of jet black as the brand colour, the very size of the can inrelation to its competition and the gothic ‘tattoo’ style typographyall combine to give the sense of a brand not to be messed with – theMother of all energy kicks.

Consumers don’t have to think that hard to understand exactly what thebrand is about and whether or not they want a piece of the action. Thisis the power of semiotics at work – tapping into the triggers and cuesof the shopper’s sub-conscious, enabling them quickly processinformation and make decisions on which brand to purchase.

More often than not, packaging that utilises semiotics well will appearsimple and uncluttered, relying on elements such as label substrate,typography and other design subtleties to communicate a certainsentiment or feel to its audience. This is especially useful forproducts that have a lot to communicate but very little space in whichto do so.

The recent re-design of the Heinz baby food range is a strong examplehere. The tiny label, the introduction of the hessian-effectbackground, the muted colour schemes, the natural looking productcameos and the use of the butterfly character all instantly combine togive a sense of naturalness and high food quality without clutteringother critical information, such as variant and age suitability. Theresult is a simple yet powerful piece of design that instantly providesmums with key functional information, while also using semiotics totapping into more emotive purchase drivers.

Both Mother and Heinz are perfect examples of brands that use semioticsexceptionally well. Their strength lies in the way they cut through theclutter by working on both a conscious and semi-conscious level.Whether they realise it or not, consumers are being hit by a designdouble whammy, instantly communicating what the brand is all about andenabling them to make quicker and easier purchase decisions.

In the ‘one second world’ of the supermarket, brands don’t often get asecond chance to make a first impression so utilising semiotics can bea powerful weapon indeed.