Taking a risk will always beat following the crowd

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal titled "Consumer goods firms duel for shelf space" indicates that, in many superstores, consumers face up to 100,000 items to choose from. So, what does this mean to the brand owner, who is not only fighting for the hearts and minds of the consumer but also for the increasingly limited amount of space on the retailer's shelf?

Year after year retailers demand more for valuable shelf space and as private label and speciality products widen the field and raise the level of competition, the strategic impact on packaging is huge. Now, more than ever, there is a need to achieve excellent stand out on shelf and product/pack recall in the mind of the consumer. But, looking around supermarket shelves one does not see widespread individuality. Most packs in any category seem to have leapt straight from the same gene pool -- same shapes, same sizes, same colourways.

Any 3D or graphic designer will tell you absolutely free of charge that the obvious way to stand out is to look different. Long-established brand icons such as Toblerone chocolate and Polo mints managed to achieve it.

These are iconoclastic products that smashed category norms and have since become icons in their own right. However, these brands would be considered unacceptably innovative by marketers looking to launch them today and would be either strangled at birth or sent back to the drawing board.

So, what is the reason? Basically, while innovation was once seen as a vital tool in the consumer goods armoury, risk-averse marketers are now squeezing out creativity in the interests of short-term profitability. Every new product or pack concept is researched to death nowadays -- and many great ideas are thrown out simply because a group of consumers is suspicious of anything that sounds new.

Conservatism among the buying public, twinned with a generation of marketing directors who won't take a chance on something that breaks new ground, is leading to supermarkets and car showrooms full of me-too products, line extensions and minor product tweaks.

The notion of triangular chocolate -- launched in 1908 -- would today be considered too difficult and too risky as a proposition, as would a mint with a hole, introduced 40 years later.

Despite being in the packaging design business for 33 years, SiebertHead has been allowed to proceed with relatively few real innovations. In the past few years we have worked on Phileas Fogg snacks in pyramid packs and Torino wine in an irregular shaped bottle that has won prizes across Europe. With Fogg's pyramids we were told by the client that they were acting against the accepted category norms but strongly believe that breaking new ground is what we were being paid for. As it turned out the brand had a lift of 100% in the first year of its new packaging shape. This is a compelling argument for innovation.

Like many designers, we believe that consumers themselves want new ideas and breakthroughs but are fed with a diet of conservatism that is sweeping through British corporations. Decisions made solely by marketing departments and market research companies are by their very nature unlikely to set the world alight and it is short-sighted to base all new product decisions on them.

A CIM survey several years ago suggested that while 33% of respondents believe that innovation "creates strategic competitive advantage", 42% agreed with the proposition that their own corporate culture is "the key constraint to innovation". The results showed that there is a long way to go until the innovation process is deeply embedded in the culture of companies and its use still seems predominantly tactical.

Despite huge amounts spent on research a quick look at the average supermarket will demonstrate that most packaging in the FMCG area is me-too and just doesn't stand out from the huge football crowd of products on display. Those brand owners that have the conviction and courage to do something new will sweep away the competition. Maybe now it's time for your marketing department to turn to an analysis of brands that have made the leap and take courage from their success, rather than let focus groups decide and define the future of the brand?

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