Packaging

To produce a product that is appealing to both children and their parents is a difficult task. Children want something sweet and sugary, while the parents are interest in nutrition and health factors (for the most part). Those in the marketing profession keep this important fact in mind when they are designing the packaging. To grab the attention from a new consumer who has never tried your product before is the key element. Many employees ask themselves, “How am I going to make my package stand out on the shelf from the rest?”

The Meijer brand “Fruit Snacks” follow the norm for most children’s snack packaging. There is nothing out of the ordinary on this box. The bright, bold colors are attracting and eye catching, however, that is what most of the fruit snack packages look like. Their theme is “Veggie Tales”, a popular children’s show. The show’s aim is to “enhance the spiritual and moral fabric of society through creative media” (www.bigidea.com). The show is one that children enjoy and parents generally approve of. The characters are on the box, along with pictures of the fruit snacks that match their character. Though this is a good idea, most products include this on their packaging, therefore not making this product stand out. One key element to note is that all of the characters are smiling. They look extremely happy to be on this fruit snacks box, as if the fruit snacks themselves made the characters happy.

Though the pictures are the dominant feature on the box, there are various words on the front. They read “100% Daily Value of Vitamin C”, and “Made with Real Fruit Juice”. This text in sans serif font is not as bold as the name of the product, but still very evident. These are important facts to parents, but irrelevant to children. Since parents are the ones who buy the product, it is important to appeal to them as well.

This is a well designed advertisement on the package. Unfortunately, the designers did not do anything out of the ordinary to set their package apart from the rest. It is another mainstream design that falls into the background of our image-cluttered society.