As a Millennial gal, aesthetically pleasing products on Instagram have a special hold on me.
But buying olive oil on the ‘gram because the bottle looks nice? I didn't think that was a thing until a Graza ad showed up.
The shades of green, drippy lettering, and cute illustrations all tickled my brain the right way.
So I tracked down the design studio behind this brand, whose co-founder chatted with me about putting fun in packaging design in today's Obsession.
In today's email…
Rapid-fire opportunities in the $236B private label boom
The business of making food packaging fun again
What we’re surfin’, from Glossier's UGC play to businesses you can start with $0
Let's dive in!
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Private labels, elevated
Store brands from chain grocers and retailers used to be the anti-status symbol. The “cheap out” version.
Now the tables have turned.
While pricing for some of these private label brands remains competitive, they’re getting a makeover — think less value-driven designs, better branding/marketing, more trend-forward items, and overall elevated product experiences:
In the past year, 55% of grocery shoppers bought more private brand goods (only 28% for name brands), and nearly half of them plan to continue buying more.
More notably, their loyalty to these brands is no longer solely based on price.
So buying store brands is… kinda cool now.
This could be bad news if you want to launch a small, independent brand, because now you have to compete with both big name brands and private label products made by the very retailers you’re trying to get into.
But there are still opportunities for entrepreneurs to ride the private label boom that reached $236B in 2023:
Help consumers
With so many private label brands to choose from, consumers need a “who’s who guide.” You can go at it two ways:
A comparison app: Develop a mobile app that allows users to compare private label products across different retailers. Include features like user reviews, price comparisons, and nutritional information for grocery items.
Review content: Start a blog or YouTube channel dedicated to reviewing private label products. Offer in-depth reviews, comparisons, and recommendations for specific categories, like beauty products, snacks, or baby care items.
Take inspiration from this list of most popular store brand categories:
Source: Retail Dive
Help businesses
Retailers are fighting to retain this momentum and customer loyalty by building stronger customer engagement programs.
You can work with mid-sized grocers and offer social listening services to help them target younger consumers, or run member surveys for their regional locations.
You can also help them involve customers in product development, like what Sam’s Club is doing.
Develop an online platform where loyal customers of the brand can suggest and vote on new private label product ideas.
Not every store has the solid fanbase like Sam’s Club does (even that is under question after they took away a beloved perk), so you could also become a membership consultant for smaller retailers and help them figure out the best way to engage with customers.
👽 OUR LATEST OBSESSION
A conversation with Gander, the creative engine behind viral food brands
Graza. Fishwife. Brightland.
If you’ve never heard of them, just walk into a local specialty store — you’re guaranteed to spot some of these brands, with packaging so aesthetically pleasing they make you feel like walking inside an Instagram feed.
Gander helped build the Graza brand from scratch, an olive oil that comes in a squeeze bottle. Source: GoPuff
Marked by bright colors, bold fonts, and creative illustrations, this style of packaging is now moving beyond specialty stores and into big retail aisles.
“If you walk into almost every major retail chain grocery store in the US, there would be at least one product that we designed, if not two.”
That was Mike McVicar, co-founder of Gander, a Brooklyn-based design studio behind Graza, Magic Spoon, and a dozen of other “viral” brands.
I tracked him down after obsessing over Gander’s visual style, and asked him about the latest trends in packaging design.
Except he’s not a fan of following trends or virality — not surprising for a die-hard creative.
“We get all the time that our work is trendy and that we've set a certain visual tone with our work, but we don’t intentionally do that,” Mike confessed. “It can feel limiting and annoying sometimes.”
But he still shared his take on why we’re seeing this phenomenon.
The design pendulum
Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, good design wasn’t a priority for CPG brands.
Food packages with call-outs and stickers that scream “33% less fat” were the mainstream, a style that Mike endearingly described as “over the top, ugly, and kind of extra.”
When the 2010s rolled around, branding design went to the other extreme — the blanding trend.
Packages became minimalistic and generic, often featuring sans serif fonts and pastel colors.
With the rise of social shopping, many brands are now catering to the dopamine-charged, color-forward Instagram aesthetic.
It’s also a renaissance of the Y2K style, represented by bold colors and playful textures.
“The pendulum has swung toward ‘it can be fun again!’” Mike said.
Big brands love this trend, too.
From Jell-O to 7UP, they’re redesigning to dial up the dopamine, and creating a visual identity that spreads fun and joy.
But…
This trend has led some companies to prioritize “doing it for the ‘gram.”
“You find brands that just have very decorative design, or only feel interesting aesthetically. It won't pay off for them in the long run… not even in the short run,” Mike said.
It’s problematic for brands to emulate what everyone else is doing, or recreating a trend, because:
You’re assuming that someone else's solution is your solution
You’ll be easily replaceable
You’re not focusing on communicating your own brand values and differentiation to customers
He also doesn’t think the current dopamine packaging trend will stay for that much longer.
It’s a pendulum, after all.
Differentiate brands through design
Looking back at their big wins, Mike gave three simple tips for any brand who want to stand out through design:
👉 Start with your story and history as a brand
👉 Understand who your customer is, what kind of world they live in aesthetically, and what’s pleasing to them
👉 Look at your competition, and see what opportunities align with your product and company that others aren’t doing yet.
Keep reading to see how Gander applied these principles to help an alternative pasta brand get on the map, and one delicious food packaging trend that Mike's excited about.
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