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i would tend to agree, but a lot of it is whether you’re thinking long-term or short-term, or even able to have the relative luxury of planning for the long-term. it’s not all “institutional culture” – perhaps a decent analogy is describing individuals and their saving/spending habits as being, well, “savers” or “spenders.” people tend to fall along one line or the other, for whatever reasons.

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long, but well-written, and pretty graphtastic.

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I’d support this. I’d like to buy nicer food as well, and don’t really care what the box looks like. But if I’m short of money (and feeding three people means I usually am), I’ll buy what I can afford. I certainly wouldn’t look at the next brand up and think “heavens, that looks far too nice for a mere serf. I should buy this one instead. Its lurid orange and utilitarian style make me, a humble peasant, feel much more comfortable.”

It works more in the other direction, though – the self-proclaimed “finest” brands are rarely significantly different to any other, but just as people will splurge for champagne instead of far cheaper and far nicer (many blind tests indicate this), if the packaging is flash and the label bangs on about how amazing and fine it is, people will convince themselves it’s better and worth more. See also: bottled water.

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alternate explanation: people with limited budgets buy food products in line with their budget because otherwise they can’t eat. packaging is a lot less important than design wonks believe it to be (as a design and marketing wonk, it hurts me on the inside but in my heart i know it’s true.)

simpler packaging has a number of cost benefits that were overlooked – limited colors lowers the cost (doing 1 or 2 color runs), avoiding complicated packaging and avoiding bleeds helps keep costs down (less cuts = less money spent). it can also change how jobs are ganged together – less manpower required to do a job means lower costs. now, a penny (0.0068 EUR / 0.0054 GBP) per unit doesn’t seem like much in terms of savings, but over tens of thousands of pieces being regularly run-off, that turns into real money, which means a cost savings for the budget brand managers involved.

i’m not saying design is irrelevant; but i am saying that when it comes to food – particularly budget food – cost is king. the days of the classic and obvious “no frills” packaging (pathmark, a us chain, had a literal “no frills” in-house brand that was actually quite modern) seem to be largely behind us, if only because color printing has gotten much cheaper. the little touches are less likely to be noticed, i think, outside of industry analysts and obsessives.

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Must admit Ive seen a lot of this stuff, people really do turn rabid when it comes to “their” brand of whatever. Game and hardware companies end up with a built in PR wing who will defend them to the death even when they fuck-up.

The rest of that interview sounded more like a drunken pitty party though. Something Awful already has the ‘sand paper’ niche covered I think ;p

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