Conventional wisdom says that strong brands don’t need product shots, and should focus on communicating only brand values and meaning. We would argue: ‘that depends’.
For us the role of packaging at POS is to trigger or remind consumers about a powerful brand story. Sometimes that includes the product, sometimes not.
So for Guinness shelf impact is achieved by showing the perfect pint of the black stuff. The brand name is temporarily separated from its symbol in order to iconise that moment of truth, imagined or re‐experienced in the consumer’s mind. In this case the ‘Ahhh…’ moment trumps abstract communication of, say, ‘depth’ or ‘heritage’.
Boddingtons takes a different approach, simply flooding the eye with its unique honey‐yellow brand colour and enlarging the brand name so much that only three letters can be read. Oddly effective, don’t you think?