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Soap Box Blog: Can sandals ever be fun?catherinedawes, 22 July 2009Be the first to comment on this article There was always going to be a small segment of largely sandal-wearing people who would actively seek out food in drab, brown worthy-looking packaging. But, if recent packaging designs are anything to go by, brands have decided the way to convert the rest of us to the healthy eating cause is to combine functional with fun.
Kellogg’s league of cartoon characters proclaim across a series of jovial adverts that they have added something new to muesli with Nature’s Pleasure – taste. The message is that not only will you enjoy eating the product, but you should enjoy buying it too – it should feel like a fun choice rather than a punishment. Brands like Innocent Drinks have been coupling wholesome ingredients with whimsical copy for some time, promoting the idea that healthy doesn’t have to be worthy. Method even applied the approach to its natural cleaning products, so you can clean the toilet with a smile on your face. But while the healthy-humorous balance has been achieved by many in the grown-up food arena, children were always going to be a harder sell. The Weetabix Food Company and Honey Monster Foods have recently launched and revamped, respectively, cereal bars for children. Both are trying to promote their bars as full of natural goodness, to appeal to mums, and fun, to appeal to kids. Springetts took the time-honoured approach of creating a jolly cartoon character for Weetabix’s new Oaty bars, to appeal directly to children. The sunny field of wheat setting is intended to reassure parents. Holmes & Marchant took a different approach when it redesigned the packaging for Honey Monster’s Harvest Cheweee range. It decided that the demands of ankle-biters needed to be totally separated from the wishes of their beleaguered parents. The exterior carton – the bit seen by mums when buying the bars, features a lunchbox to make clear at a glance what it is suitable for. The individual wrappers – the bit seen by kids when they eat them – have a brightly coloured image of an animal. Of course, this is effectively two separate designs for the two separate customers. It’ll be interesting to compare the fortunes of the two bars. Can humorous and healthy be combined in one design? Or should two different elements be created, one to keep us entertained and the other to appeal to the hidden sandal-wearer within us? Catherine Dawes is features editor of Packaging News Packaging News wants to hear your views on these issues. Join the debate by logging in and leaving your thoughts at the end of each article. Click here to read more comment, debate and blogs. And if you would like to write a Soap Box Blog, we’d love to hear from you. Just email packagingnews.editorial@haymarket.com Speak Your Mind |
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