JKR

5. Messaging and sustainable design could make all brands appear more homogeneous.

Pack fronts are burying their branding under a mass of other information. A plethora of (eminently worthy) messaging that proclaim green accreditations are now joining all the nutritional information that was added just a couple of years ago. In addition to the GDA’s, brands are carrying information on the source of their paper etc etc. While well intentioned (or cynically applied), such a blizzard of flashes will wash over the consumer while choking the branding like bindweed.

In addition, it might be safe to assume that governments, always keen to be seen to act on matters of high public awareness, will in time require more standardised physical packaging. The template for this can be seen in Germany where beer brands are required to share common bottles, the better to aid reusability. Great for the planet, challenging for a brand aiming to look distinctive. As packs become less physically distinctive and more graphically cluttered, it might be prudent to invest more energy in a brand’s graphic equities now to help preserve more powerful branding later. One day your logo might be all you have left! Equally, if you are to carry sustainability messaging, it will be more memorable if you make it look and feel brand-centric. Innocent’s “buy one get one tree” flash springs to mind. In fact, it’s the only green flash one ever hears being spontaneously quoted in brainstorms – probably because it captures the spirit of the Innocent approach to life, rather than feeling like a bolted on piece of thinking.

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