Our Food Marketing Agency Talks Through Some Of The Best Branding Ideas For Food Products
If you’re anything like me; then walking down the aisles of the supermarket is like witnessing a child in a sweet shop. Ironically, if you see me in a sweet shop, I am also just like a child in a sweet shop. I, like many people I’m sure, think as much with my stomach as I do my brain. It’s a weird one, (Anatomically speaking), and my stomach? Well, that’s led by my eyes.
As humans, we’re suckers for effective branding and packaging. In fact, I know I’ve personally had many a poorer tasting product before. This is purely because they had the better-looking branding which effectively sold me a lie. The team here at VerriBerri, a leading food marketing agency in Essex, wanted to look at some of the best ways in which you can market your food product. We understand this is especially difficult in today’s saturated (super)market. Below are some of the key considerations you should bear in mind.
What Is The Product You’re Selling?
No, this isn’t a trick question and we’re not trying to catch you out. But think about it for a moment. Some products don’t need heaps of branding to be effective, because the product sells itself. Certain, more aesthetic-looking food products can do all the talking for your brand. Colourful sweets, artisanal ready meals and pasta in assorted shapes/colours can all be shown off through a biodegradable film of some sort; rather than hidden behind packaging. Using recycled materials like this also ticks another box for your product, sustainability. Customers are more environmentally-conscious when they shop than ever before.
So, review what it is you’re selling and determine what proportion of the branding should be reserved for the produt. Here at our food marketing agency; we’ve noticed that many people seem to forget that, at the end of the day, it’s the product they’re selling. They get so wrapped up in the branding that they lose sight of what should be the core focus.
He Who Shouts Loudest, Does Not Always Shout Best
Most customers have grown tired of bold, in your face packaging when it comes to food shopping. Instead, this is a diminishing style typically reserved only for children’s brands. Kids, after all, will always be drawn, magpie-like, to overtly extra packaging. I am of course using that phrase wholly in the zeitgeist-y millennial sense.
Nowadays, people prefer something a little more refined and subtle. Customers also appreciate humour (provided it’s actually funny) or smart marketing and branding. So, when you’re designing your initial packaging/branding for your food product, don’t just think putting bright colours and words like ‘wow!’ on it, is going to lead to additional sales. I appreciate, of course, that few people would be as overtly cheap as to put that on, but you understand the point.
On the flipside of this, you can’t be bland. The hectic nature of people’s lives today means that consumers are flying around supermarkets at seemingly record pace. You don’t have long to get their attention, but you can just as much do this through stylish design and a tasteful colour palette as you can with something more inherently obnoxious.
Image, Type Or Both?
Traditionally, the best way to bolster appetite appeal was to whack shiny (almost always photoshopped) images of the product onto the food product’s packaging. After all, as we touched upon in the beginning, we eat with our eyes. Is that enough, however, nowadays? Or have we grown wise to this marketing tactic, our heads learning to supersede our stomachs in decision-making. “Oh yeah, but it won’t really look like that”, for example. Customers are met with a glut of options as they peruse the shelves, and this abundance of choice has actually had the effect of turning some customers back towards simpler branding.
There’s been a resurgence in simply packaged food products, with simple, yet elegant type fonts adorning their exterior. Perhaps it’s a subconscious yearning for slower, simpler times in today’s frenetic world? Whatever the reason, dialling back your food product’s packaging (even in a fairly major way) is now a genuinely viable option for food brands. Complementing these typefaces has been iconography rather than necessarily product imagery. A graphical depiction of the product or the brand can chime in nicely with that pared back feel, and connotes a professionalism that many other food brands fail to possess.
Branding your food product in this way can seem like a radical departure from the conventional supermarket packaging we’re all so used to seeing. But trends have to start somewhere, and it’s better to be at their forefront rather than playing catch-up. So, when you’re considering how to market/brand your food product, don’t be afraid to go against the grain (especially if you’re selling wheat, barley, bulgur etc.). Our food marketing agency is always open to innovative brands, who aren’t averse to taking a bold approach with their marketing.
Complementing Your Packaging
Well done, your packaging is great. Not that kind of complement? Oh, ok. A good brand is a comprehensive brand. Even if you have the strongest, most appealing-looking packaging for your product, you need to be securing customers before they’ve even reached the supermarket doors and their hot flush of air. Successful brands tackle multiple marketing avenues. This means you should be looking at your social media channels, whether you’re appearing in publications and how your website ranks on Google and other search engines.
Effective food product marketing should leave people salivating as they go past. It should entice them in and have them swiping it into their trolley. In order to do that, however, you need to be smart with your branding. Further to this, many supermarkets are investing in improving their own-brand packaging, so it’s not even as if you’re solely competing with big brands, anymore! In other words, competition has never been so fierce. So, if you’d like to find out more about our food marketing agency, then get in touch! Contact VerriBerri today on 01376 386 850.