OUGD401: Practical Exploration (Psychology Behind Branding, Packaging & Advertising)

My question focuses on the relationship between branding and the consumers self and a large portion of that is made up the psychology between the consumers and the brands themselves so their ways of advertising, the design of the product etc. Which brings me onto how products are branded to be aimed at certain people, how brands use particular methods of advertising and product design to deceive people into buying something they don't necessarily need.

A lot of brands nowadays tend to focus more on the connotations of their own branding rather than the denotation, which is how these brands thrive. By creating a lifestyle, an atmosphere, a way of life as opposed to just a bunch of products all individual to one another, they can entice people into their branded way of life. This is where part of the need to buy more and more products from particular brands come from when they don't necessarily need it, because they trick people into believing they need more than what they have. 

For example:

With this Nike advertisement, it focuses a lot on creating this idea of 'these shoes will make you run faster', which realistically is a bit far fetched. Granted they might ever so slightly improve your running ability over the other pair of running shoes you bought just 3 months ago but by no means are they going to allow you to knock ten seconds of your 100m time. It's advertisements like this that, in a way, trick consumers into not always buying but at the very least taking a look into the product itself.

Another aspect of branding that I explored also was the packaging side of things and the clever little psychological tricks that brands play on us without us even knowing. Brands tend to use a lot of trigger words, single words that grab your attention at an instant, words such as Boost, Cure, Energize, Vibrant etc. are all words that can be seen on everyday packaging. Hollow words are also something that can sound good but can be very deceiving, words that have potential to be good but ultimately have no real meaning behind them, these include words such as may, possibly, up to, about etc. 

For example, a study was conducted by Psychologist Daryl Benn on how advertisers use word choice and catch phrases to sell different, but identical in effectiveness, brands of aspirin. One brand advertised their product was "unsurpassed in speed - no other brand works faster", when the same study showed that this brand themselves worked no faster than any of the other brands. The claim they were making wasn't false per say but it was, however, completely hollow, thus supporting this idea of brands fooling people into believing that they should choose their product over other brands simply through their use of words.

Aside from the terminology used on packaging, the design itself makes up for a big portion of how we perceive a brand and their values. Even down to the last pin point matters with the design, because supposedly it has been estimated that 60-70% of buying decisions are made in store and given that the design is the first immediate thing you see of a product, it needs to have an impressive wow factor to influence the consumer to buy it over another product.

'Cusps' are something that are often used by brands to give a product a feeling of urgency, fear and caution all of which are things that demand our attention. These are sharp, pointy shapes that are used, for example in the packaging above if you was to view this amongst other hair products it's likely that this would jump out more at you simply because of it's cusps used in the typography, especially on the 'X's.

Coca Cola logo even has cusps

This is even done with brands we don't even realise, until researching into the psychology behind branding I had no idea what 'cusps' were, let alone that they had been used in a brand I've consumed for the majority of my life.

Even just making a much more simplified packaging can improve the relationship and more importantly for the brands the sales of their product. For example, 'Buster, the drain cleaner once barking on the heels of Mr. Muscle, unseated the giant in England by introducing a small pack devoid of the power graphics that typify products in the aisle. An Elmwood client, Buster also recognized the emotional agitation of consumers who need to unclog a drain, and answered it with a calm, clean, simple package that contrasted with the visual noise at the shelf. Sales rose 42% and market share hit 30% with no above-the-line support, and the brand is now expanding into Europe and Asia.'

It seems as though it doesn't take much at all to convince consumers to buy your product, if you design and advertise properly and precisely using the right techniques. This is something I'm going to aim to do for my practical response to my essay, create a piece of brand packaging that manipulate consumers into thinking they need this product to improve their lifestyle or simply to fool them into spending more money on a product branded in such as a way that gives the impression it's more effective or better than other products on the market.