JKR

Brands, essentially, are badges of trust. If their promises prove false they lose their worth. The Sunday Times reports that the European Food Safety Authority is likely to play Jiminy Cricket to marketing’s Pinocchio, cracking down on cereals promoting themselves as healthy, and demanding more scientific proof. Broadly the issue is less to do with health claims made for the “good” ingredients, and more to do with a disingenuous lack of information about sugar and fat content. In other words, it’s not going to be OK to claim a product is generally healthy unless it is generally healthy.

But does a spoonful (or two) of sugar help the medicine go down? Weetabix is cited as one of the few modern cereals with low levels of fat, salt and sugar. I think this used to be more typical, but instead we added our own sugar with a teaspoon -  products with added sugar spare mum from being the one controlling how much sugar it’s OK to add. Are we being misled by the contemporary packaging small print or are many of us complicit in turning a blind eye to sugar content, preferring to focus on enthusiastic claims for lowering cholesterol etc? Perhaps rather than changing marketing claims, we will see more fruit used to sweeten the cereals naturally, or a return to mum being the gatekeeper on the amount of sugar allowed.

I was recently interviewed by the BBC Panorama team who were keen to know how much I lied for a living on packaging. I explained that I put my own faith in the FSA and the integrity of clients who realise it makes good sense to tell the truth. We do need to trust our brands and our governing bodies – as such, greater legislation is a good thing. Currently, genuinely beneficial products have to go an extra mile covering themselves in scientific explanation – if we can have more faith in topline claims then such products can “have us at hello” with less dreary visual noise. Consumers can be more confident in their trust and the packs will work better as single-minded brands.

Of course, design for benefit-orientated brands is always going to lead with the product’s upside, just as in life one would not begin a first date with a lengthy discourse on one’s athlete’s foot. McCann Eriksson promise, “Truth well told”, seems to me to be a reasonable benchmark. In the meantime, the truth is that it’s always going to be possible to give a healthy impression visually regardless of the nutritional copy. The rainbow bowl on the new Cheerio’s pack does this brilliantly – it’s then down to us if we want to scrutinise the promise.