A few weeks ago I was in my local Oxfam charity shop and saw this record for sale:
It’s a lovely example of wit in packaging design1. They could have had a selection of red-faced middle-aged men with tubas and trombones. Instead, they did something creative.
I mention this because this week we’re looking at packaging and humour. This isn’t an area I look at much — either in this newsletter or with clients — for two reasons: it’s not that common and many of the ideas that make it through are really rather low-wattage. There are, though, delightful examples of humour in packaging, such as this handle as a skipping-rope: a great instance of a visual pun.
Alternatively, there’s using pre-existing knowledge and playing off that. Witches have warts, right? So here’s a box of wart-remover:
Onions make you cry, right? So here are extra-large tissues for extra-large onion-slicing:
But, in my experience, packaging often fights shy with humour. There are, I think, three reasons why.
The first is the elephant in the room: a product’s package is the brand’s prime real estate, and you only change it if you really know it’s gonna be worth it. For proof of this, just take Beanz Meanz Heinz. The iconic campaign started in 1967 with ads like this:
But it was only in 2008 — a full 41 years later — that the tin was redesigned, changing Beans to Beanz.
Second, there’s the notion that is something is humorous, it will be funny only for a certain amount of time. Customers will tire of it. This is what marketers call ‘wear-out’ and it’s an important issue: which types of humour last? Which types of humour just deliver a funny ad and then, well, that’s that?
A fair concern. But here we have to tread carefully. Marketers are very often guilty of the notion that customers think about brands 24/7. Do they? In a word: no. They — and me, and you — have far more important things to think about, such as putting the bins out or feeding the cat. What’s more, we increasingly have a far better idea of the impact of wear-out with humorous communications.
The third reason is the cardinal sin of modern marketing: over-thinking or its near-variant: being unable to make a decision because of overthinking so asking lots of random people2.
In his great book Problem Solved: A Primer in Design and Communication, Michael Johnson writes, ‘A great stumbling block for many great ideas remains the dreaded area, ‘research’.’ Johnson includes a masterful example of witty packaging, for Slazenger, that was rejected after doing the rounds with focus groups.
Brilliant, isn’t it? But they turned it down. If I were the umpire, I would have reversed that call.
A footnote: funnily enough, I was in Prague a couple of weeks ago, coming back to the UK after doing a workshop in Latvia, and saw an ad that used the same device, depicting Australia as upside-down3:
It stopped me in my tracks and made me read it — or, at least, try.
Now all I need to do is learn Czech.
Many thanks for reading,
Paddy
Book a meeting with me here / www.studiogilmore.com / pg@studiogilmore.com / Twitter: @mrpaddygilmore
Confused? Brasso is ‘a metal polish designed to remove tarnish from brass, copper, chrome and stainless steel. Brasso originated in Britain in about 1905.’ Wikipedia, I owe you a pint.
One of the best examples of this happened to me a few years ago, when I was working for an agency team and we were assessing the creative work. “I couldn’t really make up my mind as to which ideas I liked,” said the clientside Head of Marketing. “So I asked my nineteen-year-old son, to see what he thought.” Imagine a world in which you go to a doctor and he says, “I can’t really work out what’s wrong with you. But I’ll ask my kid, OK?”