JKR

“Do we really have to put the pack-shot on the end-frame?” bleated the head of planning at the ad agency, wrinkling her nose.

The inference being that the (yet to be created) ad would lose all its grooviness should they include something as old fashioned and drearily commercial as an image of the product the ad was selling.

There are indeed lots (and lots) of really uninspiring and dreary pack-shots in ads. Blame the art directors. The two examples above, however, were pulled pretty much at random from this week’s Grazia, and demonstrate a creative interpretation of the brand’s spirit via loud and proud use of the packs. They may not win D&AD’s, but one certainly knows what they are selling.

The packaging jar produce has, at times, been blessed with fantastic interpretation in advertising. In the early nineties BBH brilliantly adopted the iconography we designed for the Boddington’s draught can  to create a seamless union of pack, brand, and concept. It did win D&AD’s, as memory serves. There have been plenty more happy examples over the years (and as many more where the pack was deemed an irrelevance).

Of course, there are degrees – Cadbury’s Gorilla would have been made plonky with a bolted on pack shot – the randomness of the ad was part of its appeal. But Gorilla still made use of the packaging’s signature purple to deliver a strongly branded ad.

I think the onus is on advertising creatives to work out how to use the packs creatively. And it’s the responsibility of the packaging designers to deliver work which has strong enough equities to inspire the ad guys.