What Do You Think The Dark Side Of Branding Means?
Hiding the truth behind graphics, making something look better/ more innocent than it actually is. Disguising the truth.
An example of this is Kelloggs’ cereal brands, on the front of their packaging we see vibrant colours, bold text and happy-looking mascots to entice children to want this cereal and make their parents buy it, increasing the sales. The dark side of this is for example Kellogg’s Frosties cereal contains more sugar than a single sugar ring doughnut.
Greenwashing
This is where a company or brand will use ‘eco-friendly’ packaging in an attempt to increase sales to fit in with trends and make a person feel better about themselves making them believe they are helping save the planet. This can be done through the colour theory of green or using nature or eco signs and plastering it across their packaging, but greenwashing is when brands do all this but it is actually false, their products aren’t recyclable or what they are writing about their product is false. Factors of this include recyclable, non-toxic, cruelty-free, eco-friendly, biodegradable and sustainable.
What To Look Out For
Sustainable
There is no consistent definition of what it means for a product to be sustainable. What makes it sustainable? Under what authority and by what legislation is it sustainable?
Recyclable
Many items are not practically recyclable even though they will have recycling-friendly plastered on the packaging. Some plastics can only be recycled at one centre in the entirety of the UK.
Biodegradable
Most items that are labelled as biodegradable even though they will decompose will take a very long time for them to do so, therefore will end up doing harm to the environment in the meantime as it decomposes.
Cruelty-Free
Cruelty-free is not legally defined so anyone can claim that their product is on their label. Look for legitimate certifications such as the Leaping Bunny.
Non-Toxic
Non-toxic is an unregulated term therefore it has no legal definition when used on a product label. Green and non-toxic household cleaners often have potentially dangerous chemicals included in them.
Eco-Friendly/Environmentally Friendly
We don’t actually know if the process of making the products is environmentally friendly so it is a meaningless term to have unless explained in concrete terms.
Task- Create a poster to advertise Coca-Cola as a ‘new zero’ manufacturer
To create my poster I first started by adding a green background as this colour in colour theory is linked to nature and recycling which is what everyone thinks when they see the colour green. I then used DaFontt to find a pen-like font for the Coca-Cola label and used a different style of writing style for ‘on the planet’s side’ underneath this. I did this to make the can appear more personal and to make it look like more care had been put into it when in real life it would have been made on the same production line as the rest of the cans. I made a tagline to grab the consumer more when they read it on the shelf making them want to buy it so they are also on the planet’s side. Finally, I also made sure to put eco-friendly and biodegradable in the top left corner to add more to the greenwashing false advertisement.
What I like about my poster is that I didn’t use the original Coca-Cola font or red colour which will make it stand out on the shelf and make people pick it up and look at it wondering why it is different and after reading it will want to buy it to be better for the planet.
What I would change or improve on for the future is also include recycling icons or other icons that are used in greenwashing.
Exclusionary Marketing
What Do We Mean By Exclusionary Or Targeted Marketing?
This is where products are based solely on the target audience which most of the time can be discriminatory to the people who the product isn’t aimed towards.
Target audiences are made through data some of the time, if you find out 70% of people who buy your product are female then you target them and ignore the rest. What happens to the other 30% by purposely excluding them they’re missing out on a large, growing chunk of the market.
Examples of the exclusionary market include Yorkie in the 2000s who stated on their chocolate bars that their chocolate was only for men.
Exclusionary marketing is done in very subtle ways nowadays unlike the Yorkie campaign from the 2000s but still keeps gender roles alive and strong.
Task- Create a poster for Chupa Chups sugar-free lollies that is non-exclusionary and aimed at both parents.
To create my poster I began by making my background which I used the gradient tool, I decided to do a light blue to dark blue to represent the sky as I wanted to have a cloud-like font and also because the colours are bright and will catch children’s attention. For the font, I then found my cloud font and wrote New Sugar-Free so when the child gets the adult’s attention the adult will immediately see they are sugar-free and feel more inclined to buy them. To make my packet non-exclusionary I put to give all parents peace of mind but made sure to put ‘all parents’ in a larger font than the rest of the sentence so that that would be seen first within the sentence. I then added the final touches like the Chupa Chups logo and the flavours and added some more about the lollies being sugar-free and good for the kids which finished my poster.
What I like about my poster is how I have made it that everything I want to be seen is what immediately draws attention first like the lollies being sugar-free and that all parents at peace of mind.
What I would change about my poster is in future I would draw out my own icons of the fruit with the pen tool and add highlights to make the poster more personalised to the brand.