New Covent Garden pioneered the soup carton, borrowing a metaphor from milk and juice to communicate freshness – at that time a real innovation for soup. Nowadays most competitors seem to favour tough-as-old-boots plastic cups, but NCG sticks to its guns admirably. Graphics tend to change pretty often though, and in the latest design we see a move away from a brief flirtation with appetite appeal.
Evidently they’ve spotted that the big food shot is somewhat generic, but it’s also to do with the authenticity trend, where simple, home-made graphics trump glossy, photoshopped fantasies any day of the week. I also think that a bit of unprinted naked carton is strangely appetising in itself.