Thu 15 May 2008
This article from Trend Hunter caught my eye. As a marketer, branding in the context of visual pollution is interesting at the very least.
DebrandedHome.com produces stickers or labels for people to put on their personal care product containers. They are out to reduce “visual pollution” and “lessening brand presence” in the home. Why clutter your bathroom with products in various colours and shapes? Use your own plain containers and make them look great with their labels."
Lessening brand presence?! Clutter?! Our precious brand assets, shunned. How does that happen? Maybe because it reeks of marketing, and people don’t always like feeling marketed to. Like any marketing element, packaging design can be subject to many masters along the value chain:
Brand Team: Drive equity; stand out and sell on the shelf; support product news for sales
Sales Team: Give me better news to sell to retailers (new, innovative, cheaper, etc.)
Retailer: Give me exclusive; protect the product (theft, damage, etc.); fit in on my shelves
and finally…
End User: Make it about me (help me, indulge me, give me better value, save the world, make it pretty, etc.)
From the top down, you might end up with quite the loud marketing mish-mash. You’d probably hide the end result too, that is if you even bought it in the first place.
The organization must have the forethought, incentive and determination to rally around what drives the end user first, and lead the value chain in developing cohesive solutions to that end. That’s all everyone in this chain wants anyways - they just prioritize different ways of getting there. If the idea starts with a clear vision of the consumer, maybe marketing won’t feel so much like that marketing stuff. And packaging may answer consumer needs instead of getting in the way.
(By the way, I only used the DeBrandedHome.com product to make a broader point; I actually think it’s a pretty good idea.)

