Almond Milk Wallpaper

We as consumers are lazy.

You may, at work, bemoan the supplier or colleague who never reads their emails properly, as I do. But then I go to the supermarket and purchase the wrong box of milk, because I don’t read labels once I’ve chosen a brand I like. I go by visual cues, and I am not the exception. Some studies have shown that visual cues are processed 60 000 times faster by the human brain than verbal or text cues.

So, when considering a range expansion beware of the laziness of consumers.

Most dairy milk companies have a simple approach to range expansion, generally restricted to Low Fat, Full Fat, and, maybe, 2% Fat.

Same brand, three colour differentiators on the packaging. Easy for the producer, easy, visually, for the consumer.

But with the explosion of Almond Milk, Coconut Milk, Oat Milk, Soy Milk, Rice Milk and the variations of subcategories like Almond Milk for Cereal, Sweetened Almond Milk for Drinking and Barrister Almond Milk for Coffee, things get a little complicated, especially if you produce the full variety of legume, vegetable, fruit and grain milks.

Today, I bought Oat Milk, not my intention, instead of Barrister Almond Milk.

Why?

The brand I like uses baize for their Barrister Almond Milk, but they also us it for their Oat Milk cartons, and bright pink for normal consumption Almond Milk. So, no differentiation between two of the subcategories, unless you want me to read the fine print. Not going to happen on a Sunday morning.

Lack of discernability between sub-categories of the same brand shows laziness on the part of packaging design. If you are going to use colour as a differentiator then be consistent.

The consumer is lazy, it’s a fact of consumerist society, don’t sabotage your brand by being a lazy brand manager, that just breeds resentment from the consumer.

Don’t wallpaper your subcategories.