Speaking at last month's Private Brand Movement conference, Michael Ellgass, Walmart's director of grocery marketing, acknowledged that customers thought that the initial Great Value redesign went a bit too far into generic territory and, as a result, Walmart has begun to add touches of color back into Great Value's packaging.
Color is coming back, and Walmart is not alone in the effort.
Kmart's new mantra, "colorful thinking," says it all: The days of retail whiteout are drawing to a close. Kmart is going for full saturation with its redo of the Champion Breed pet line and both Family Dollar and Kmart are pushing for more vibrancy with their respective launches of the Family Gourmet (formerly Family Pantry) and Smart Sense lines. Mr. Ellgass revealed that ongoing iterations of Great Value packaging will incorporate customer-appropriate props. (Based on my store visits, think sensibly-plated food resting on not-too-fancy placemats with fork to the side.) Packaging will also feature more close-in photography that will make the food the "hero." (I caught early sightings of the color-prop-close-up formula at work on pizza boxes last week.)
At the conference, McDonald's senior director of global brand strategy, Matt Biespiel, also showed off the 'I-can-almost-taste-it photography' that will become the new standard as McDonald's marches on with its "simple, easy, enjoyment" rebranding. He too spoke of propping as the next big thing.
Mr. Ellgass is not saying the original Great Value redo didn't yield real results: 87 percent of shoppers find it easier to spot the product on the shelf; 70 percent think it looks like a "true brand"; and 78 percent like it so much that they've purchased more products post-primp. It's a nice perception jump from over a year ago when Andrea Thomas, who formerly headed up Walmart's private label program and is now senior vice president of sustainability, spoke of the "disconnect" between Great Value's purchase rate and its brand awareness.
It turns out that Walmart's new quest for color isn't just about store shelf navigation either -- they're now thinking about how products look in shoppers’ pantries. It stands to reason that if you're buying more Great Value than ever, telling your green beans from your garbanzos would become problematic as the sea of white stacked up.
Color to the rescue. Sam's VP of private brand, Maurice Markey, spoke of how packaging is something that customers "interact" with until the product is "depleted," and McDonald's Mr. Biespiel pointed out that, since packaging for them is an after-purchase event, it serves an important role of "reassurance" and offers McDonald's a great platform for story-telling.
Discussion Questions: How do you think color and imagery is transforming private label packaging? Is standing out against the field of national brand products the most important criteria? What's the next step PL packaging needs to take?