Brands could lose face in logo balancing act

“You can’t have everything shouting at the same volume,” he says. “It is important people understand the hierarchy of the information.”

Too many claims can “deplete the power of the brand”, says Silas Amos, a creative director at design agency Jones Knowles Ritchie. Brands need to remember that there is more than one type of consumer, he explains. “Sometimes the amount of labels suggests that consumers really care, when some of us do not,” he says.

Shopper strategy consultancy ID Magasin has found that 80% of shopping is carried out in a so-called “beta mode” with low involvement and decisions made subconsciously.

Shoppers look for colour and shape when in the supermarket, explains ID Magasin’s account director Emilie Coles. She gives the example of Coca-Cola, whose iconic bottle shape and red label against the brown cola background is instantly recognisable. “Brands should use the front of packs to communicate the brand and the back of the pack for any additional messages,” recommends Coles.

Negative impact
Increasing the amount of information decreases the amount of space available for enhancing the brand and brand-related information, according to Susan Barty, a partner at law firm CMS Cameron McKenna and a food industry specialist. “There is a real risk for brand owners that logos may end up having a negative impact on brand recognition,” she says.

According to Amos, “real trust” between brand and consumer is earned by being diligent and responsible rather than being sexy in how brands make their claims. He points to Heinz, which has cultivated a sense of trust in its brand and does not have to “bedeck itself in logos”.

The Food Labelling Regulations 1996 only require packaging to carry accurate descriptions of the product, including ingredients, place of origin and sell-by date, while there are also laws covering the weights and measures of pre-packed food. But, despite the absence of legal requirements on nutritional information, the fact “they have been adopted on a widespread basis, means they appear to have almost become compulsory”, says Barty.

The Food Standards Agency (FSA) traffic light system denoting sugar, fat and salt content has been taken up by a number of supermarkets, including Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose. But Tesco, the largest and arguably most influential of them all, has put forward its own logos without the colour coding system recommended by the FSA.

The National Consumer Council (NCC) backs the FSA scheme. It says the key to the success of a front-of-pack signposting scheme to encourage consumers to eat more healthily is the support given by and uptake from both retailers and food manufacturers.

Some supermarkets, such as Morrisons, have also included the guideline daily amounts (GDA) on their packaging. This tells consumers what percentage of their recommended daily allowance of sugar, for example, is found in a single serving of the product.

Kraft Foods has also chosen to implement GDA information on front of packs. However, it chooses additional logos for specific packs, such as the Rainforest Alliance (RA) logo, for farms certified to comply with the RA’s sustainability guidelines, on Kenco Sustainable Development and Kenco Pure coffee.

A 2006 Mori poll on customer awareness of multiple traffic light labelling found that 57% of those aware of the schemes said the symbols had helped them to eat more healthily.

The real problems occur when space for information starts to run out. At the Carton Conference in April, Packaging Federation chief executive Dick Searle argued in favour of in-store merchandising, as trialled by Boots to explain the carbon footprint of its shampoo, instead of extra on-pack information. “Sticking more information on the pack is not the answer,” he said.

Barty and Preece advocate the use of concertina, peel-back labels. “In a lot of cases people are looking to reduce their packaging,” says Preece. “So it’s not about making the pack bigger, but making the pack work harder.”

Recycling symbol


In 1969, Gary Anderson, a 23-year-old student, entered his mobius loop symbol into a competition for a logo to raise awareness of environmental issues. The design was not trademarked and has since been adopted internationally as the symbol for recyclable materials. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) wants to introduce a common logo to show whether packaging is widely recycled, locally recycled, or not at all by local authorities.

Soil Association


The Soil Association label certifies a product as organic according to the association’s standards, which it claims are higher than those drawn up by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

Carbon Footprint


The Carbon Trust label shows a product’s greenhouse gas emissions for its entire life cycle, based on the PAS 2050 standard, developed in conjunction with Defra and BSI British Standards. It is being tested by 20 companies including Walkers and Coca-Cola.

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