Joyce Yip examines how product design can make or break consumer brands in the time of panic buying and budget cuts. 

An organic ethanol-based hand sanitizer brand revised their packaging design soon after the outbreak of COVID-19, changing the label color to stone blue. A serif font conveys vibes of calm and cleanliness. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

The packaging of consumer products is meant to cause a psychological impact and influence purchase decisions. The texture of a box, the shape of a container, the colors on the label, the smell — all of these contribute to a product’s appeal in the mind of a potential buyer. 

Cracking the puzzle as to what drives a person to reach for his purse is perhaps the marketer’s Holy Grail. Data analysis shows packaging influences at least a third of a shopper’s decision-making process. On average, it takes a potential buyer seven seconds to decide whether to get swayed by or remain indifferent to the packaging design of a product.

However, in the time of a pandemic, designers do not have seven seconds at their disposal to convince a potential customer. Take the early days of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Hong Kong, when panic buying saw supermarket shelves wiped out of cleaning products overnight. When the focus is on grabbing the product before the stores run out of supply, the time taken for decision-making is cut down to a mere second or two. 

“Packaging is a brand’s first touch-point with the consumer. Even with the rise of e-commerce (in the wake of COVID-19), the feelings stimulated by a product’s visual still come first,” says Bryan Ng, senior program director, HKU Space Executive Academy Global. 

Product designers increasingly prefer using the color orange, for its association with vibrancy and good health. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Rachel Hunt, design and product development consultant with Hong Kong-based global supply chain management company Li & Fung, sees potential opportunities in the coronavirus disaster that halted economy and hit production in most countries around the world in the last few months. Up-and-coming brands can finally come into the spotlight, now that the big players are swept off the shelves, says Hunt.  

“When they are stockpiling, consumers naturally pick up their known, trusted, familiar brands with distinctively recognizable packaging for comfort and control in unprecedented times. However, a high level of initial panic buying has created an opportunity for lesser-known brands to thrive and become ‘trusted’, particularly for newly in-demand products such as hand sanitizer and (medicated) soap,” she adds.

While the sudden and overwhelming demand for hygiene and food products has subsided, design strategists around the world have been trying to work out ways of staying ahead of the game, should such a crisis resurface in our lives again. Hong Kong — a packaging design mecca in the 1980s and home to some of the world’s finest design schools — is no exception. 

The use of transparent or white packaging is popular when it comes to hygiene products. A spaced-out sans-serif font conveys a clean, well-intentioned vibe. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Keeping it simple

The effect packaging design has on purchasing decisions vary, depending on the shopper’s involvement level, time spent on studying the product, peer pressure as well as their culture, emotions, social class etc. However, research shows, at the end of the day, simplicity and clarity are key to enhancing the appeal of food labels as nobody is looking for poetry on a can of peas. 

According to associate fellow of the Hong Kong Psychological Society, Kelvin Chua, even before COVID-19 struck, 40 percent consumers thought food and beverage packaging was overloaded with information. The literature on labels came across as complicated and untrustworthy to most buyers. 

“There’s a movement to simplify label information, which is known to facilitate greater customer engagement,” he says. “Food safety is the baseline for consumers nowadays, and people want to know whether the product they are interested in is farm-fed, sugar-reduced and so on. So rather than giving scores of data that do not make much sense to people, just sticking ‘no artificial flavoring’ on the label works already. This thirst for health-related information will carry on even after COVID-19, especially among the city’s health-conscious young people and the growing number of cases with high cholesterol and diabetes.” 

Hunt agrees, adding that shoppers today have no patience for confusing labels. 

“Brands with a fresh and simple design with clear labeling of ‘what it is’ facilitates a quick pick-up.” She also notes that consumers these days are reluctant to pick up something from the store shelf unless they are buying it, for fear of contamination. Hence simply stating a product’s uses in a few words might be the way to go. 

People buying essential stuff stop noticing the colors on a product’s packaging. That’s when neutral colors like light greens, whites, and shades of wood have a greater chance of getting picked up. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Is bright alright? 

The less-is-more approach falls in line with presenting a clinical and hygienic image. Hunt says she has noticed a preference for nature-inspired bright colors, detailing and fonts that evoke a sense of happiness, positivity, wellbeing and mental strength. 

“Depending on the product, white with a muted pastel may work for a calming, comforting influence,” says Hunt, adding pops of color against a white background can make a pharmacy-inspired aesthetic less forbidding. “This method can also help elevate practical items such as hand sanitizers to (be counted among) aspirational wellness products.” 

Hande, an organic ethanol-based sanitizer brand, was launched in the UK within two weeks of coronavirus outbreak in the country. The company donates 30 percent of its products and a portion of its profits goes to organizations in need. The transparent glass bottles are wrapped in labels with creamy white and stone blue colors. A serif font conveys vibes of calm and cleanliness. 

Hong Kong’s own Bathe to Basics, a hand sanitizer spray, hand soap, body oil and other bathroom toiletries brand since 2011, has opted for transparent packaging to let the product’s natural color show while continuing the original line of black, white or silver monotone bottles. On the labels, product category, flavor and ingredients are listed in a spaced-out, sans-serif font. 

Ng notes a rise in demand especially for the color orange, for its symbolic vibrancy. Such an example is Hong Kong-based mask manufacturer MasHKer, whose peach-colored logo, resembling a smiling face, exudes a sense of happiness and hope. 

“Brands can convey the idea of ‘energy’ and ‘life’ by using the color orange,” he says, citing fast food chain Fairwood, cosmetics brand Mannings and a number of energy drinks who have opted for the color as their brand signature. 

However, the impact of color on consumer psyche diminishes at a time when people are “buying only stuff they really need” and staying in good health is their primary concern, Ng points out.  “So greens, whites or even wood colors will prevail in the future.” 

At a time when retail markets around the world are close to bleeding out from the impact of COVID-19, brand designers and manufacturers need to enlist every bit of help they can get to promote their products. And while in-your-face PR campaigns may be shunned during bleak times, a small tweaking of color, composition, and wording can make a difference by subtly pushing the consumer to reach for a product.