Educated or not, we Indians don't read. Certainly not packaging??

Educated or not, we Indians don't read. Certainly not packaging.

I've been using the L'Oreal conditioner for a few days now and wondering why it stopped working... until I realised I was in fact using the shampoo, imagining it to be a conditioner. (it's been lying upside down on my bathroom shelf and i assumed it to be a conditioner!)

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WE BUY USING COLOURS, ICONS, ILLUSTRATIONS AS NAVIGATION TOOLS.?WE DON’T READ.?
        

When brands design packaging it is assumed that the user will pay the same attention to the packaging as does the designer or the brand manager. She doesn't. We buy and use products by colours, symbols, and pictures.

HERE’S A LITTLE STORY FROM MY BRAND MANAGER DAYS AT UNILEVER
        

As a young brand manager I fought with the India team at HUL on the packaging of our premium range of hair care for coloured hair arguing that this is

- premium

- the consumer is educated and that she reads

- minimal and equal looks aesthetically superior..

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????

They argued back saying the shampoo and conditioner look much alike. Too alike. And expecting consumers to read the pack was expecting too much. That trade would be equally confused - they'd never be able to tell the difference. Sure enough they were right. My premium range was launched in India, and died very soon after.?

But this story came back to me this morning - as I was staring at the shampoo thinking I'd been using a conditioner. Even while it was foaming in my hair, I dismissed it as left over foam from the shampoo wash.

SOME INTERESTING STOREIS        

Amitabha Das also shared a similar experience? “ Many years back, I spent quite some time reading the labels and the respective information for a few well known brands to choose the right shampoo for my hair, which had just started to fall at that point. After studying some 7-8 brands and their different product varieties, I finally decided on one and went ahead with it. Only problem was, in my rush for the final pick from the shelf action, which I had expected to be the least complicated one, I wrongly picked the conditioner instead of the shampoo.

Once I reached home and tried it that evening (yes, evening) I complained about the lack of foam, only to realise I had picked the wrong product. Out of embarrassment I never uttered a word and had to go back to the store to buy another pack, of shampoo this time, and the conditioner just remained unused in my bathroom for years”

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Renu (Design & Strategic Insights Lead - Europe, Pepsico) ?further remarked, “I've loved this combo forever, and have to admit there've been many times when I've wanted to meet the geniuses who designed the packaging, and the clients who approved of it. Not only this mix up between shampoo and conditioner there is also a twin-pack which features two bottles of the same shampoo, but with two different colored caps. What's with that, folks..?!”

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Sonia, on the other hand had a beautiful concept to share, “Even more true given the ‘eye overload’ and not just information overload these days with staring at phone screens. Making life simple for things in regular use will definitely work better for everyone. I remember how as researchers we have struggled to recommend a pack when the only difference is the marginal thickness of a line.”

A lot of our marketer assumptions are bull shit aren't they. It's the actual consumer test and usage behaviour that matters!