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In the world of consumer goods, some products go unnoticed while others make their mark in a sustainable manner and manage to create a real impact. This impact is usually due to a perfect coherence between the product and how it is presented. Packaging is therefore not only an informative container (about the content) but a veritable communicational object (about the brand). But here, there is nothing new.
The new paradigm lies in the fact that we have moved from a consumer society towards a communication society: packaging must now contain not the product but rather the consumer.
Given that brands are constantly battling against uniformity, while the consumer is seeking rarity and preciousness, packaging is thus a formidable strategic challenge.
A key element in brand value management, packaging expresses in its own way, three paradoxical trends which drive the lives of today’s brands: the search for authenticity (in a world saturated by marketing), the creation of the spectacular (in a world that’s afraid of boredom), and the temptation of simplicity (in a world where people no longer know where they live).

THE SEARCH FOR AUTHENTICITY : when industry no longer gets good press

Following the underlying trend to a return towards the “natural” and the “authentic”, many packages now have a “homemade” or artisanal aspect.
This is return to a mythical time when industry did not exist. This seems very paradoxical on the part of brands as they are products of industry and commerce.

This trend towards authenticity transports us to the neighbourhood grocery store. Glass jars, the smell of ground coffee and signs in white chalk to inspire us.
Brands “disguise” themselves and take on the forms of what preceded them foods: the grocer. The true value of the grocer is the emotional aspect: his opinions, his anecdotes, his advice and sometimes even his humour. He is now seen as a genius of communication who intuitively speaks to you of “authenticity” and “tradition”.

Food packaging plays on authenticity and is therefore much more than a covering: it envelops it with the genius of the grocer and diverts it into the service of the brand. It thus is a vehicle for the identity of the brand (visual identity, design and verbal identity and story-telling). It is now the sole keeper of the magic held within the container.

The Bucamel range of wines whose graphic design takes us back to a contemporary artisanal mix of old illustrations and with a contemporary treatment of typography.

In the world of cosmetics with the Australian brand Aesop, the grocer is transformed into an apothecary.

THE CREATION OF THE SPECTACULAR: The dematerialisation of brands’ value

Brands shed their industrial nature by dressing themselves up as the neighbourhood grocer, but also by posing as the “muses” of contemporary artists. Packaging thus produces an event and “wraps us up”. This is always within a logic of limited editions, a clever way of lending exclusivity to mass designed products.

It is already a longstanding trend in the world of spirits. The new aspect lies in the use of such a principle by mass market and family brands such as Coca-Cola.

Unlike the first trend, here packaging does not value the product but vice versa. Very clearly, the value proposition here lies almost exclusively in the packaging. The packaging is the product while the product, it is just a pretext.

This demonstrates the crossing of a new threshold in our patterns of consumption: we buy a product and, to paraphrase Jean Baudrillard in La Société de Consommation (The Consumer Society), we consume a sign.

Thus the versatility of the packaging responds to the standardisation of taste. Note that this approach is obviously very relevant for iconic brands, i.e. the owners of visual codes which function as a set of socio-cultural references.

THE TEMPTATION OF SIMPLICITY: branding goes back to BASICS

In overloaded shop aisles, among the plethora of ranges, with a hysteria of creativity and innovative launches, here is a third movement of particular interest: that of brands returning to their original nature. Neither artisan nor artist, but brand.

What is going on here? Branding in a majestic setting. A movement that is a counterpoint to the previous trend but part of the same logic: putting the value back into everyday products.

How? By a graphic simplification and the reactivation of the iconic nature of certain visual codes of brands (logos or trademark symbols, for example).

By acting this way, brands reactivate their primary function: recounting the origin of the product, signifying the producer. They give meaning to industrial mass production.

Of course, it is an approach that makes our graphic designer friends very happy. If graphic design has become important for branding, it is because it allows for the management of the intangible assets of brands and to make “present” that which is “absent”.

This strategy of reactivation of the iconic nature of brands reveals a new cycle in the life of certain among them, before a return to renewed creativity.

Note that the competitor to Coca-Cola, Pepsi, has chosen this path.