Designing something memorable
From concept to Counter, we walk you through the whole experience.
Creating
In-house
Packaging.
Making coffee your Wake Up Cup.
In-house brands are unique in that they only exist to keep regular brand pricing competitive. They need to compete but not over shine their counterparts.
category packaging Strategy
Most house brands look like blend into the shel scape and that’s purposeful. Stores usually want their regular brands to shine as they make a bigger profit on them but they also want them to stay price competitive.
The way they do this is by offering a price competitive brand that is also of similar in quality to the regular brand. This strategy keeps the regular brands pricing down, the rub is, the in-house brand can’t afford be the hero
INSIGHTS HELP INFORM DESIGN
BOLD COLOURS
While the house brands and many of the popular competitive brands use desaturated even flat colours the best way known to stand out on shelf are to use bold, disruptive colours.
BOLD FONTS
With the possibility of only a few skus on shelf its important to be bold and simple with our communications and the hierarchy of claims to be able to compete with the bigger brands and their broader shelf blocking.
Imagery
Whether using photography or illustration or a combination of both it’s important to consider the quality, the impact and the relevance they have with a consumer. New products can have the challenge of failing to tell the buyer what they need to know if they don’t consider how the buyer shops. Are they looking for a cool label? Are they looking at the photo of the product and usage to see if they like it? Or, are they buying on brand reputation? For whatever reason the creator may like the packaging and branding the consumer may have a very different point of view so we need to really understand their behavior.
SHELF BLOCKING
There are a few ways to shelf block:
1.) The first may be to use the logo and a common, bold background color, image or pattern so that the number of skus shown will always block the same.
Only the product name and imagery would look unique. (Think Tostitos)
2.) The second is keep the common branding at the top but use unique colours to separate the products. Imagery can aslo be unique too. (Think Kettle Chips)
3.) The third would be to use a brand header for continuity across packaging with the lower section telling the unique product story. This would allow for more individual product story without losing too much of the blocking advantage. (Think Ruffles)
Developing Design Directions.
In this exploration we found three ways to express an in-house brand that clearly looks like it could be executed throughout the store without stealing the spotlight.
In each exploration the direction has a clear way to display the brand and roll out the line extensions in other store categories. Win! Win! Win!
Design Direction 1
Masthead
This design direction is meant to sit at the top of the package or label depending on the application. It has a ribbon style feel which should give the feeling that it is special in some way.
Design Direction 2
Disruptor
As the disruptor moniker suggests this design direction is meant to appear as an add on. It should feel like it was added as an after thought to a label or product package.
Design Direction 3
Sash
Meant to look like a sash, this execution can be added to the in-house products in a way that identifies the category and also describes the product its applied to. Icons make it clear which department it came from.
Hero 1
Hero 2
Hero 3
Design Direction 1
Masthead
This design direction is meant to sit at the top of the package or label depending on the application. It has a ribbon style feel which should give the feeling that it is special in some way.
Hero 1
Design Direction 2
Disruptor
As the disruptor moniker suggests this design direction is meant to appear as an add on. It should feel like it was added as an after thought to a label or product package.
Hero 2
Design Direction 3
Sash
Meant to look like a sash, this execution can be added to the in-house products in a way that identifies the category and also describes the product its applied to. Icons make it clear which department it came from.
Hero 3
Picking a direction, choosing a hero.
The different explorations and uses are important to think of as it’s not a one size fits all for all in-store departments. Uniformity and continuity are the key.
All thumbs are fingers but not all fingers are thumbs. Good advice when you want to express your brand uniquely on product but need a strategy across categories.
GALLERY
