Can packaging turn your customers off?

The Friday business profile in the Reading Evening Post is an excellent opportunity for small businesses to get some free PR. This week a couple who sell special fruit juices have taken the slot. Everything sounds wonderful (and probably tastes that way too) until I looked at their packaging.

I honestly couldn’t tell these cartons contained fruit juice - they looked more like men’s toiletries (shower gel and shaving cream) or – worse – something out of the back room of Ann Summers. The majority sported black backgrounds (with a couple of white ones) with a swirly motif that is reminiscent to the patterns made by swinging those fluorescent rings around that you buy at Guy Fawkes night.

How do these designs relate to fruit? OK, they probably wanted something that stood out from the rest of the fruit drinks, so a design with large images of the fruit in question wouldn’t have caught any customer’s eye. But a black background does not suggest something edible (or drinkable), unless you want to smear it all over your body…

Another look does reveal a description of the flavours on the front, which is the only saving grace it has to suggest it’s a drink. I may not be a brandist, but attractive, edible colours adapted from large, mouth-watering images or using a clever twist with the font from the descriptive words and the fruit colour in question would be much more conducive to achieving a sale.

The moral? Don’t disguise your product, or dress it up so it’s unrecognisable. Blatant, in-your-face designs which say exactly what’s on the tin have always succeeded in the past, with good reason. And keep them clear, concise and uncluttered - overuse of fancy designs can easily obscure your message.

Facing up to Christmas too!

As a continuation of my last blog regarding portraits on business cards, I’ve just read a blog which suggests including your portrait on Christmas cards so that the recipients remember who it is from, considering how many other cards they will receive at that time of year. And to save it becoming fodder for the paper-recycling box, include another item as an aide memoire or provide an action so they contact your company in the New Year.

Facing up to networking

Has anybody thought about putting a small portrait of themselves on their business card? Three reasons why came to mind: 1) so the recipient of your card wouldn’t have to rack their brains to remember what face was associated with this card after a networking meeting, 2) if you were arranging a meeting to, say, discuss a particular project or tout your new product, the other party would know who to look out for across a large hotel foyer or busy coffee shop, preventing the red carnation scenario, and 3) if someone wants to telephone or email you, having your image in front of them can help making that initial contact all that much easier…

Does anybody else have another reason for having your face smiling forth from your networking material?

How images can work better than words

Driving from an event, I noticed a van in front of me. It was coming up to lunchtime and my stomach was rumbling, exasperated by the fact that pasted on the back windows of this van were the most wonderful pictures of various breads and pastries. It was obviously a baker’s van, but the imagery was so powerful, you could imagine the interior packed to the gills with warm, yeasty rolls and sticky fruit buns dusted over with icing sugar.

What a wonderful way to advertise their wares. Just a logo and name of the company would not have had the same impact…