Steve Parks

Does What It Doesn't Say On The Tin

I popped to the local convenience store this evening, and one of the items on my list was fabric conditioner.

There was every kind of washing powder, liquid, tablet, sachet - I never knew it was so complicated to get your clothes clean!

But I was searching for conditioner - and there was one bottle, branded 'Lenor' that didn't say 'washing liquid' on it. In fact, it didn't say what it was at all.

I looked all over the bottle for some tell-tale sign that this was Fabric Conditioner or Softner. Nothing.

It told me that it was more concentrated than ever, and used a lot of graphics and words to try to convince me this was better for the environment. But it didn't tell me what it did.

In the end I took it to the counter, and the assistants spent some time reading all the labels and couldn't find out what it was either.

An entire team of marketing people and designers probably spent hundreds of man-hours designing the packaging - and they missed the one vital bit of information - what does the damn thing actually do!

Maybe they don't want ignorant customers like me to buy their product? Maybe it's some kind of test.

But I definitely think there's a lesson there - it's so easy to get distracted into all sorts of clever branding and marketing that you lose track of the simple stuff.

Look at your products, your website, your shop, your exhibition stand or anything your customers will come into contact with. Is it clear what you are for?

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