Tagged: Brand

05/03/2014

First Things First Manifesto 2000. Via Emigre

Various authors

This manifesto was first published in 1999 in Emigre 51.

We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it.

Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession’s time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best.

Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.

There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.

We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication – a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.

In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.

Jonathan Barnbrook

Nick Bell

Andrew Blauvelt

Hans Bockting

Irma Boom

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville

Max Bruinsma

Sian Cook

Linda van Deursen

Chris Dixon

William Drenttel

Gert Dumbar

Simon Esterson

Vince Frost

Ken Garland

Milton Glaser

Jessica Helfand

Steven Heller

Andrew Howard

Tibor Kalman

Jeffery Keedy

Zuzana Licko

Ellen Lupton

Katherine McCoy

Armand Mevis

J. Abbott Miller

Rick Poynor

Lucienne Roberts

Erik Spiekermann

Jan van Toorn

Teal Triggs

Rudy VanderLans

Bob Wilkinson

I may add myself to this. Federico Hernandez-Ruiz

Here’s the link to the original post: http://www.emigre.com/Editorial.php?sect=1&id=14

And a copy of the 164 manifesto written by Ken Garland along with 20 other artists.

http://www.designishistory.com/1960/first-things-first/

03/03/2014

FDA Proposes Most Significant Update to Nutrition Facts Labeling in 20 Year

The nutrition facts label as you know it will likely be changing soon, thanks to significant changes supported by the Obama administration:

“Our guiding principle here is very simple: that you as a parent and a consumer should be able to walk into your local grocery store, pick up an item off the shelf, and be able to tell whether it’s good for your family. So this is a big deal, and it’s going to make a big difference for families all across this country.”

– First Lady Michelle Obama

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today proposed to update the Nutrition Facts label for packaged foods to reflect the latest scientific information, including the link between diet and chronic diseases such as obesity and heart disease. The proposed label also would replace out-of-date serving sizes to better align with how much people really eat, and it would feature a fresh design to highlight key parts of the label such as calories and serving sizes.”

– FDA Announcement

“For 20 years consumers have come to rely on the iconic nutrition label to help them make healthier food choices. To remain relevant, the FDA’s newly proposed Nutrition Facts label incorporates the latest in nutrition science as more has been learned about the connection between what we eat and the development of serious chronic diseases impacting millions of Americans.”

— FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D.

Some of the changes to the label the FDA proposed today would:

Require information about the amount of “added sugars” in a food product. The 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans states that intake of added sugar is too high in the U.S. population and should be reduced. The FDA proposes to include “added sugars” on the label to help consumers know how much sugar has been added to the product.
Update serving size requirements to reflect the amounts people currently eat. What and how much people eat and drink has changed since the serving sizes were first put in place in 1994. By law, serving sizes must be based on what people actually eat, not on what people “should” be eating. Present calorie and nutrition information for the whole package of certain food products that could be consumed in one sitting.
Present “dual column” labels to indicate both “per serving” and “per package” calorie and nutrition information for larger packages that could be consumed in one sitting or multiple sittings.
Require the declaration of potassium and vitamin D, nutrients that some in the U.S. population are not getting enough of, which puts them at higher risk for chronic disease. Vitamin D is important for its role in bone health. Potassium is beneficial in lowering blood pressure. Vitamins A and C would no longer be required on the label, though manufacturers could declare them voluntarily.
Revise the Daily Values for a variety of nutrients such as sodium, dietary fiber and Vitamin D. Daily Values are used to calculate the Percent Daily Value on the label, which helps consumers understand the nutrition information in the context of a total daily diet.
While continuing to require “Total Fat,” “Saturated Fat,” and “TransFat” on the label, “Calories from Fat” would be removed because research shows the type of fat is more important than the amount.
Refresh the format to emphasize certain elements, such as calories, serving sizes and Percent Daily Value, which are important in addressing current public health problems like obesity and heart disease.

“The proposed updates reflect new dietary recommendations, consensus reports, and national survey data, such as the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, nutrient intake recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, and intake data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). The FDA also considered extensive input and comments from a wide range of stakeholders.”

“By revamping the Nutrition Facts label, FDA wants to make it easier than ever for consumers to make better informed food choices that will support a healthy diet. To help address obesity, one of the most important public health problems facing our country, the proposed label would drive attention to calories and serving sizes.”

— Michael R. Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine

“The Nutrition Facts label has been required on food packages for 20 years, helping consumers better understand the nutritional value of foods so they can make healthy choices for themselves and their families. The label has not changed significantly since 2006 when information on trans fat had to be declared on the label, prompting manufacturers to reduce partially hydrogenated oils, the main source oftrans fat, in many of their products.

The changes proposed today affect all packaged foods except certain meat, poultry and processed egg products, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

The FDA is also proposing to make corresponding updates to the Supplement Facts label on dietary supplements where applicable.

The agency is accepting public comment on the proposed changes for 90 days.”

Via: http://www.thedieline.com/blog/2014/2/27/fda-proposes-most-significant-update-to-nutrition-facts-labeling-in-20-years?utm_source=The+Wrap&utm_campaign=586a3a2c8e-The_Wrap_Weekly_03_03_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f0d332d430-586a3a2c8e-230013793

25/02/2014

Is This Startup Ready For Investment? Via: steveblank Blog

ᔥ Posted on February 25, 2014 by steveblank

Since 2005 startup accelerators have provided cohorts of startups with mentoring, pitch practice and product focus. However, accelerator Demo Days are a combination of the graduation ceremony and pitch contest, with the uncomfortable feel of a swimsuit competition. Other than “I’ll know it when I see it”, there’s no formal way for an investor attending Demo Day to assess project maturity or quantify risks. Other than measuring engineering progress, there’s no standard language to communicate progress.

Corporations running internal incubators face many of the same selection issues as startup investors, plus they must grapple with the issues of integrating new ideas into existing P&L-driven functions or business units.

What’s been missing for everyone is:

a common language for investors to communicate objectives to startups
a language corporate innovation groups can use to communicate to business units and finance
data that investors, accelerators and incubators can use to inform selection

While it doesn’t eliminate great investor judgment, pattern recognition skills and mentoring, we’ve developed an Investment Readiness Level tool that fills in these missing pieces.

—-

Investment Readiness Level (IRL) for Corporations and Investors
The startups in our Lean LaunchPad classes and the NSF I-Corps incubator use LaunchPad Central to collect a continuous stream of data across all the teams. Over 10 weeks each team gets out of the building talking to 100 customers to test their hypotheses across all 9 boxes in the business model canvas.

We track each team’s progress as they test their business model hypotheses. We collect the complete narrative of what they discovered talking to customers as well as aggregate interviews, hypotheses to test, invalidated hypotheses and mentor and instructor engagements. This data gives innovation managers and investors a feel for the evidence and trajectory of the cohort as a whole and a top-level view of each teams progress. The software rolls all the data into an Investment Readiness Level score.

(Take a quick read of the post on the Investment Readiness Level – it’s short. Or watch the video here.)

The Power of the Investment Readiness Level: Different Metrics for Different Industry Segments
Recently we ran a Lean LaunchPad for Life Sciences class with 26 teams of clinicians and researchers at UCSF. The teams developed businesses in 4 different areas– therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices and digital health. To understand the power of this tool, look at how the VC overseeing each market segment modified the Investment Readiness Level so that it reflected metrics relevant to their particular industry.

Medical Devices
Allan May of Life Science Angels modified the standard Investment Readiness Level to include metrics that were specific for medical device startups. These included; identification of a compelling clinical need, large enough market, intellectual property, regulatory issues, and reimbursement, and whether there was a plausible exit.

In the pictures below, note that all the thermometers are visual proxies for the more detailed evaluation criteria that lie behind them.

Investment Readiness Level for Medical Devices

You can watch the entire presentation here

Therapeutics
Karl Handelsman of CMEA Capital modified the standard Investment Readiness Level (IRL) for teams developing therapeutics to include identifying clinical problems, and agreeing on a timeline to pre-clinical and clinical data, cost and value of data points, what quality data to deliver to a company, and building a Key Opinion Leader (KOL) network. The heart of the therapeutics IRL also required “Proof of relevance” – was there a path to revenues fully articulated, an operational plan defined. Finally, did the team understand the key therapeutic liabilities, have data proving on-target activity and evidence of a therapeutic effect.

You can see the entire presentation here

Digital Health
For teams developing Digital Health solutions, Abhas Gupta of MDV noted that the Investment Readiness Level was closest to the standard web/mobile/cloud model with the addition of reimbursement and technical validation.

Diagnostics
Todd Morrill wanted teams developing Diagnostics to have a reimbursement strategy fully documented, the necessary IP in place, regulation and technical validation (clinical trial) regime understood and described and the cost structure and financing needs well documented.

You can see the entire presentation here

For their final presentations, each team explained how they tested and validated their business model (value proposition, customer segment, channel, customer relationships, revenue, costs, activities, resources and partners.) But they also scored themselves using the Investment Readiness Level criteria for their market. After the teams reported the results of their self-evaluation, the VC’s then told them how they actually scored. We were fascinated to see that the team scores and the VC scores were almost the same.

Lessons Learned

The Investment Readiness Level provides a “how are we doing” set of metrics

It also creates a common language and metrics that investors, corporate innovation groups and entrepreneurs can share

It’s flexible enough to be modified for industry-specific business models

It’s part of a much larger suite of tools for those who manage corporate innovation, accelerators and incubators

P.S. if you want to learn more abut the IRL and other tools, we teach a 2-day class for corporate innovation, accelerators and incubators. Info here

Link to Original Steve Blank blog post:

Is This Startup Ready For Investment?.

15/01/2014

To Lure Customers, Appeal To All 5 Of Their Senses Via: Stuart Leslie @ fastcodesign

STUART LESLIE, PRESIDENT AND FOUNDER OF 4SIGHT INC, OFFERS SIX TIPS FOR PACKAGING YOUR PRODUCT AND CAPTURING CONSUMER ATTENTION.

WRITTEN BY Stuart Leslie

We know that consumer purchase decisions are often made quickly and subconsciously, but there are opportunities where it’s possible to influence a consumer’s perception of a brand. People often make buying decisions by using all five of their senses and once product designers discover what each of these sensory influencers are, they can develop packaging that strategically speaks to consumers at each stage of the decision-making process. It’s ultimately about designing a complete experience–one that supports the brand every step of the way.

At my company, we developed the 4sight Sensory Lab, pictured above, to uncover these answers. Here, for example, cold beverage drinkers known to prefer their drinks not simply cold, but chilled to the perfect temperature, are taken through a progression of exercises that mimics the various points of contact that consumers have with a product.

We identify which bottle shape, size, color, material, and texture promises that sense of cold refreshment at first glance. As the test subjects move closer, details such as condensation and frost become evident and when they are handed several bottles, each chilled to the exact same temperature–but made of different materials, textures, shapes and finishes–they provide feedback on which one feels like just the right cold.

In the Sensory Lab, our process helps us ensure that at each stage of interaction with a brand, consumers receive the right information, enabling them to see, feel, hear, smell, and taste the value of the product. Here, we’ve identified the six stages that lead to a first purchase or a repeat purchase:

THE FIRST GLANCE

Image: Pom Wonderful via Flickr user Fruitnet.com

This is the first impression at a distance, seeing the product in someone else’s hand, on the shelf, or across the room. It’s the first visual promise of what a product will do for your senses. For Pom 100% Pomegranate Juice, the distinctive profile of the bottle featuring those fully rounded spheres, allows the distinct dark red color of the juice to catch the attention of a shopper. It promises a bold, robust taste. A new entry into the tequila segment, SX Tequila chose a distinctive, curvaceous bottle with smooth lines and frosted texture to communicate the sense of a smooth-tasting, chilled beverage.

THE INSPECTION

Here, consumers take a closer look and this is where details begin to hint at tactile sensations. Flowing details etched into the structure of the Aquafina water bottle strongly suggest the refreshment that the product provides.

Image: Flickr user Sheep R Us[/caption]

Orangina, meanwhile, promises its fresh orange flavor through a dimpled finish on the bottle that suggests you are consuming straight from an actual orange.

THE PHYSICAL INTERACTION

Next, consumers make that first physical contact and combine the visual with the tactile experience. When grasped, the gentle curvature of the Febreze bottle and the angled spray head convey the soft and pleasant aroma that will fill the air. The smooth, diagonal neck on the new Miller Lite Bottle promises a refreshing flow of beer while the bold taper from the neck to the body provides a strong and confident grip for the hand. Adding the texture of the hops etched in the glass provides further engagement.

THE OPENING

When the consumer makes a physical step towards consumption or use of the product, there’s another opportunity to solidify your brand’s perception. When the foil cover is peeled off of a can of San Pellegrino, it offers the sensation of actually peeling fruit. It also incorporates a crinkling sound, which adds to the sensory experience at opening.

CONSUMPTION OR USAGE

The point at which the product is consumed or used and here, all five senses can be at play.

A smooth metal tip on Clinique’s Even Better Eyes product provides a refreshing and reviving cold sensation on the skin. For Gerber Good Start, the designated scoop holder on the side of the container provides for a clean usage experience and preserves the product for future consumption, as fingers do not contaminate the powder.

THE COMPLETION

There’s another opportunity to create a pleasant user experience when the product is disposed of or put away for later use. Wrigley 5 Gum incorporates a lock feature and embossed details to convey a secure and clean resealable pack. The Oreo cookie package also utilizes the sense of sight with a resealable film to promise lasting freshness. Once the film is replaced after each usage, it recreates the look of a fresh, unopened package.

In The Sensory Lab, we’ve gleaned significant insight into how the five senses influence consumer decision-making at six pivotal points. Incorporating a similar approach in your design process will help insure your package effectively communicates key brand attributes at each and every point of influence.

[Image: Shopping via Shutterstock]

Here is the link to the original article: http://www.fastcodesign.com/3024657/6-tips-for-making-a-powerful-first-impression?partner=newsletter

21/10/2013

Book review: “Thinking, fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman via: http://backreaction .blogspot.mx

THURSDAY, AUGUST 09, 2012

Book review: “Thinking, fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman

Thinking, Fast and Slow
By Daniel Kahneman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (October 25, 2011)

I am always on the lookout for ways to improve my scientific thinking. That’s why I have an interest in the areas of sociology concerned with decision making in groups and how the individual is influenced by this. And this is also why I have an interest in cognitive biases – intuitive judgments that we make without even noticing; judgments which are just fine most of the time but can be scientifically fallacious. Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking, fast and slow” is an excellent introduction to the topic.

Kahneman, winner of the Nobel Price for Economics in 2002, focuses mostly on his own work, but that covers a lot of ground. He starts with distinguishing between two different modes in which we make decisions, a fast and intuitive one, and a slow, more deliberate one. Then he explains how fast intuitions lead us astray in certain circumstances.

The human brain does not make very accurate statistical computations without deliberate effort. But often we don’t make such an effort. Instead, we use shortcuts. We substitute questions, extrapolate from available memories, and try to construct plausible and coherent stories. We tend to underestimate uncertainty, are influenced by the way questions are framed, and our intuition is skewed by irrelevant details.

Kahneman quotes and summarizes a large amount of studies that have been performed, in most cases with sample questions. He offers explanations for the results when available, and also points out where the limits of present understanding are. In the later parts of the book he elaborates on the relevance of these findings about the way humans make decision for economics. While I had previously come across a big part of the studies that he summarizes in the early chapters, the relation to economics had not been very clear to me, and I found this part enlightening. I now understand my problems trying to tell economists that humans do have inconsistent preferences.

The book introduces a lot of terminology, and at the end of each chapter the reader finds a few examples for how to use them in everyday situations. “He likes the project, so he thinks its costs are low and its benefits are high. Nice example of the affect heuristic.” “We are making an additional investment because we not want to admit failure. This is an instance of the sunk-cost fallacy.” Initially, I found these examples somewhat awkward. But awkward or not, they serve very well for the purpose of putting the terminology in context.

The book is well written, reads smoothly, is well organized, and thoroughly referenced. As a bonus, the appendix contains reprints of Kahneman’s two most influential papers that contain somewhat more details than the summary in the text. He narrates along the story of his own research projects and how they came into being which I found a little tiresome after he elaborated on the third dramatic insight that he had about his own cognitive bias. Or maybe I’m just jealous because a Nobel Prize winning insight in theoretical physics isn’t going to come by that way.

I have found this book very useful in my effort to understand myself and the world around me. I have only two complaints. One is that despite all the talk about the relevance of proper statistics, Kahneman does not mention the statistical significance of any of the results that he talks about. Now, this is all research which started two or three decades ago, so I have little doubt that the effects he talks about are indeed meanwhile well established, and, hey, he got a Nobel Prize after all. Yet, if it wasn’t for that I’d have to consider the possibility that some of these effects will vanish as statistical artifacts. Second, he does not at any time actually explain to the reader the basics of probability theory and Bayesian inference, though he uses it repeatedly. This, unfortunately, limits the usefulness of the book dramatically if you don’t already know how to compute probabilities. It is particularly bad when he gives a terribly vague explanation of correlation. Really, the book would have been so much better if it had at least an appendix with some of the relevant definitions and equations.

That having been said, if you know a little about statistics you will probably find, like I did, that you’ve learned to avoid at least some of the cognitive biases that deal with explicit ratios and percentages, and different ways to frame these questions. I’ve also found that when it comes to risks and losses my tolerance apparently does not agree with that of the majority of participants in the studies he quotes. Not sure why that is. Either way, whether or not you are subject to any specific bias that Kahneman writes about, the frequency by which they appear make them relevant to understand the way human society works, and they also offer a way to improve our decision making.

In summary, it’s a well-written and thoroughly useful book that is interesting for everybody with an interest in human decision-making and its shortcomings. I’d give this book four out of five stars.

Below are some passages that I marked that gave me something to think. This will give you a flavor what the book is about.

“A reliable way of making people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”

“[T]he confidence that people experience is determined by the coherence of the story they manage to construct from available information. It is the consistency of the information that matters for a good story, not its completeness.”

“The world in our heads is not a precise replica of reality; our expectations about the frequency of events are distorted by the prevalence and emotional intensity of the messages to which we are exposed.”

“It is useful to remember […] that neglecting valid stereotypes inevitably results in suboptimal judgments. Resistance to stereotyping is a laudable moral position, but the simplistic idea that the resistance is cost-less is wrong.”

“A general limitation of the human mind is its imperfect ability to reconstruct past states of knowledge, or beliefs that have changed. Once you adopt a new view of the world (or any part of it), you immediately lose much of your ability to recall what you used to believe before your mind changed.”

“I have always believed that scientific research is another domain where a form of optimism is essential to success: I have yet to meet a successful scientist who lacks the ability to exaggerate the importance of what he or she is doing, and I believe that someone who lacks a delusional sense of significance will wilt in the fact of repeated experiences of multiple small failures and rare successes, the fate of most researchers.”

“The brains s of humans and other animals contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news.”

“Loss aversion is a powerful conservative force that favors minimal changes from the status quo in the lives of both institutions and individuals.”

“When it comes to rare probabilities, our mind is not designed to get things quite right. For the residents of a planet that maybe exposed to events no one has yet experienced, this is not good news.”

“We tend to make decisions as problems arise, even when we are specifically instructed to consider them jointly. We have neither the inclination not the mental resources to enforce consistency on our preferences, and our preferences are not magically set to be coherent, as they are in the rational-agent model.”

“The sunk-cost fallacy keeps people for too long in poor jobs, unhappy marriages, und unpromising research projects. I have often observed young scientists struggling to salvage a doomed project when they would be better advised to drop it and start a new one.”

“Although Humans are not irrational, they often need help to make more accurate judgments and better decisions, and in some cases policies and institutions can provide that help.”

Here is a link to the original article: http://backreaction.blogspot.mx/2012/08/book-review-thinking-fast-and-slow-by.html

02/08/2013

Ten guidelines for effective front-panel design | Via Packworld.com

While there are no hard-and-fast rules in front-panel package design, here are some guidelines to help you define your brand on today’s cluttered retail shelves.

By Ron Romanik, Contributing Editor

Branding, marketing, and advertising all converge on the front panel of a retail package. Dedicated package designers would argue a package does all of that and more, and that nothing represents the brand more than the retail package. That’s because the package is the last place the consumer interacts with the brand prior to making a purchase decision. There are certainly no hard-and-fast rules in front-panel package design, and some categories have much more freedom to experiment. But here are some guidelines that will help you define your brand on the front panels of packages on today’s cluttered retail shelves.1. Determine the brand “position.” Know your company and your brand and your core values. Ask the hard questions again and again, and don’t underestimate the savvy of today’s consumers. Is there a unique value proposition? What is the primary product benefit, lifestyle advantage, or convenience gain? For a new brand or brand extension, remember that getting noticed is often the most important goal.

2. Explore the competitive environment. Use differentiation in a category for one goal—giving consumers a reason to pick up the package. Go to the retail environments where the package will live, and ask these questions from the perspective of the brand:
• Who am I? Do I represent something tangible? Do I inspire trust?
• What makes me special? Where do I fit in among competitors?
• Why would they buy me? What’s the most important benefit or advantage?
• How can I connect with consumers emotionally? What cues can I use?

3. Settle on a hierarchy. Information organization is a critical element of front-panel design. Broadly, the importance of the information hierarchy goes: 1) brand; 2) product; 3) variety; and 4) benefit(s). Analyze all the messages you want to convey and put them in order of importance. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be in that order, top to bottom, on the package, but it’s a good reference point to start with. Having a very organized, consistent information hierarchy across multiple product varieties helps your customer find the variety they desire and allows for a satisfying experience. Saving the shopper time in picking out a product should always be a priority.

4. Make one element the hero. Is the personality of the brand strong enough to stand on its own? Determine what is the most important single idea to communicate about your product. If you’re going to “own” something, what is that something? Align secondary brand messages under the primary umbrella message. If your brand is the hero, consider “locking in” a tagline with the logo. But make sure you’re committed to that tagline for the long haul. Otherwise, look for inspiration outside the category, which can often lead to breakout design. Use shapes, colors, illustrations, and photographs to reinforce the hero of your brand story. Above all else, make it easy for repeat buyers to find you the next time.

5. Keep it simple. Less is often more—communication-wise. Be succinct, both verbally and visually. Three main visual cues are all that the typical eye will tolerate. Successful package design is often an exercise in constraint. Remove overloaded messages on the front panel. Limit marketing claims and benefit statements. Any more than two or three, and the points will be counterproductive. Too many benefits will dilute the core brand message, and it will actually cause the consumer lose interest in the store aisle. Remember, most packages have secondary panels for more information. That’s where shoppers look when they want to learn more. Use the secondary panels, but don’t skimp on design for those either. If secondary panels are unavailable, consider a hangtag to tell a deeper brand story.

6. Manage stakeholder expectations. Expect some stakeholders to want to put all the information or marketing claims they have on the front panel. Remind them that a package is not an advertisement. Be prepared for the counter-arguments by having a repeatable design development process. Back the process up with checkpoints and transparency and show progress with visual aids. Explain how the process is both expansion and contraction, and have everyone sign off on the process before starting. Quickly develop three to five options so you can establish a common language to talk about the objectives. Be prepared with questions and suggestions should a stakeholder come to you with a printer or converter already in mind before design begins.

7. Communicate value visually. Of course, having a transparent window that shows the product inside is almost never a bad idea. Consumers want visual confirmation of the choices they make. Aside from that, you can say things non-verbally with shapes, design, graphics, and colors. Use the elements that will best communicate attributes and equities, sensations and feelings, emotional associations, and textures. Create an association with a sense of place. Suggest use occasions with graphics that have the elements of that use occasion. Involve a lifestyle. Today’s consumers judge products in relation to how the values of that brand fit into their values and lifestyle. Create a singular “reason to believe” that is capable of closing the sale in isolation.

8. Be mindful of category-specific rules. Each retail category has its own conventions. Some should be followed religiously. Some are important because bucking the convention can set a newcomer brand apart. For food products, however, the product itself should almost always be the hero. Spend the money on production and printing to create a photorealistic representation of the ideal serving suggestion. Conversely, for pharmaceutical products, the brand and product’s physical characteristics can be secondary—sometimes even unnecessary. The parent brand logo may not need to be on the front panel. Instead, emphasize the name of the product and what it does. Across all categories, though, it’s advisable to err on the side of less clutter on the front panel.

9. Don’t forget findability and shopability. Learn how consumers shop the particular category you’re in. Make sure they won’t be confused by the format or the information hierarchy. Remember, cognitively and psychologically, colors communicate ahead of everything else. Next come shapes. Words matter, but mostly as a support role. Words and typography are for reinforcement, not high-level brand communication.

Findability can be either about having a brand-first strategy or about creating a “blocking” element in the store aisle that draws shoppers in. Shopability is about having a consistent system of colors, shapes, materials, or front-panel hierarchy that guide both new and repeat shoppers in finding the specific product and variety he or she desires. If there are multiple lines under a parent brand, consider good/better/best strategies that indicate each value proposition clearly and succinctly. For instance, the relative strengths of different products in a line can be indicated by “strengths,” or relative saturations, of color.

10. Plan for future brand extensions. A brand that is flexible enough to extend to other categories also has a core brand identity that it owns. After that, a successful brand platform is one that can grow by adding product varieties or lines, or extending outside its original category. Test the versatility of a front panel’s design by applying it to new products and to new categories. Look at a wide swath of imaginary products and extensions, not just the flagship variety. Make sure they all work together, united as a brand but easily understood as separate offerings.

Even plan for future redesigns of your core product line. Don’t inhibit the future growth of your brand by creating a platform that is not both extendable and flexible.

Continue reading →

01/08/2013

8.1.13 / THE PSUEDO-SCIENCE OF ADVERTS | Via “The Daily Heller @ Print Magazine

8.1.13 / THE PSUEDO-SCIENCE OF ADVERTS

Anyone who says that the mid-1950s Creative Revolution (The Big Idea epoch) was merely a semantic change in the way advertising was practiced, should look below. Try to find the creative in this primer of persuasion.

The advertising industry, which Edward Bernays suggested was the propaganda ministry of the nation, sought whatever scientific means it could to guarantee success. Capitalism runs on commerce, so psychology, as Aldous Huxley has written, was employed early in the 20th century and adopted for better or worse in the postwar era.

Freud was the Mad Men’s best friend.

What everyone wants and advertising must exploit.

More fundamental wants and desires.

Advertising is a science?

What’s that in his hands, rope and bat? Hmmmmm.

Aspiration, inspiration, perspiration.

Women: Consumer and allurer. . .

Beats me . . . !!!

Truth. You want the truth?! You can’t handle the truth!!!

Let’s review. Got it? Got it!

http://www.printmag.com/imprint/the-psuedo-science-of-adverts/

30/07/2013

Research: How Sensory Information Influences Price Decisions | HBR Blog Network

by Steve W. Martin | 11:00 AM July 26, 2013

Words are not simply the flat, black-and-white letters as depicted in the dictionary. They are three-dimensional objects that contain feelings, sounds, and pictures when they are said or read. We use words to represent the sensory experiences of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. The map we use to describe and interpret an experience is based upon one of three channels of information — visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. “Visual” refers to pictures and imagery, “auditory” to sounds, and “kinesthetic” refers to touch and tactile feelings.

The conversations salespeople have with prospective customers involve these visual, auditory, and kinesthetic channels. Can different amounts of visual, auditory and kinesthetic information influence the price customers will pay for an item? Recently, a sales linguistics experiment was conducted in order to answer this question. Sales Linguistics is the study of how customers and salespeople use language during the complex decision-making process.

Sensory Information Price Test

Study participants were separated into three groups and six items were presented to them in a classroom setting. All participants were business professionals and university graduates between the age of twenty-four and fifty-seven. The groups were asked to estimate the price of each item and rank whether they had a low, medium, or high level of comfort with the answer they gave.

The first group would be presented only visual information consisting of a picture of the item and a brief description. The second group would be shown the same visual information as the first group, but the description would be read to them with dramatic emphasis and accentuation, creating an auditory connection. The third group would be shown the visual information, read the description in the same manner as for group two, and also be provided the opportunity to hold and inspect the item before making their guess, creating a kinetic bond..

The participants were presented with an eclectic mix of items. In order, they were shown a baseball hit by famous home run hitter Manny Ramirez of the Cleveland Indians, a six inch wooden penguin honoring Admiral Byrd’s expedition to the south pole, a black plastic stapler, a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s second Jungle Book published in 1915, a vintage brass letter opener from Italy, and a 1886 Morgan United States Silver Dollar.

Understanding the Test Results

While the test results provide many different revelations about how people interpret information, two high-level metrics underscore the impact sight, sound, and touch can have when making a decision about price. Below are the average answer comfort scores for each group (with three being the highest score). You’ll notice the scores increase with the addition of more sensory information by approximately 20 percent. The third group who received the highest amount of information from all three sensory channels had the highest sense of comfort with their answers.

The next point of comparison is average total overall price, which is calculated by adding the estimated price together for each of the six items. The average total overall price for each group varied greatly with group two (visual and auditory information) being the highest at $325,000. In addition, 29% of group two members estimated all the items cost over $250,000 whereas none did in group three.

Clearly, the test results show that different amounts of visual, auditory and kinesthetic information influence the perception of the item’s price. The experiment also provides other important lessons for sales and marketing professionals.

Customer Miscommunication

The mind does not treat all information equally. Information is ignored, misinterpreted, and generalized based upon surrounding experiences. For example, study participants misinterpreted that the baseball hit by Manny Ramirez was a home run ball when it was only a foul ball. You should never assume prospective customers have received the message correctly.

Verbal Suggestion Susceptibility

The mind is quite susceptible to verbal suggestions. Group two’s average total price was nearly seven times that of group one and close to twenty times the average of group three. The tone, tempo and demeanor of what you say can have more impact on a prospective customer than the actual words you speak. This is a particularly important point for salespeople who sell primarily over the phone.

E-mail Communication Dependency

Salespeople have increasingly grown to rely on e-mail for their primary method of communication with prospective and existing customers. There is a down side to this dependence since the persuasiveness of verbal suggestions is forfeited. Check your sent box and examine the last twenty e-mails you sent. Where would a phone call or in-person conversation have been better suited?

Avoid Product Evaluations

No salesperson typically wants to slow down the sales cycle by having the customer conduct a lengthy product evaluation. This study provides an entirely new reason why they should be avoided. The results suggest that hands-on familiarity with an item actually lowers the perception of its value. For example, the average price for group three who handled the brass letter opener was $100 while group two’s average was nearly $10,000.

Sales Presentation “Talk Track”

The “talk track” that accompanies sales presentations and product demonstrations plays a critical role in shaping the prospective customer’s perception of value. In this regard, many companies don’t take the time to ensure the fluency of their sales organizations by providing them compelling written scripts and testing them to ensure they are able to delivered persuasively.

it was Rudyard Kipling who said “Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.” He was right. Your most important competitive weapon is your mouth and the words you speak. This test proves it’s not only what you say, but also how you say it!