00;00;06;23 - 00;00;35;01
Speaker 1
Hi. Welcome to Dig in the podcast brought to you by Digg Insights. Every week we interview founders, marketers and researchers from innovative brands to learn how they're approaching their role and their category in a clever way. Welcome back to this week's episode of Dig In. I am joined today by someone who's got a ton of experience and decades of experience working in CPG packaging design.

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Speaker 1
He's a graphic designer by trade and has worked within this space for for a long time. Fernando R Render from Knitted Studio. Fernando, how are you?

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Speaker 2
Hi, how are you?

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Speaker 1
I'm great.

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Speaker 2
Well, and I'm doing.

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Speaker 1
Wonderful. And where where are you? Where are you based for all?

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Speaker 2
I bet. I'm based in when I say this. Argentina.

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Speaker 1
Amazing. I'm so jealous. I wish I was in Buenos Aires right now.

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Speaker 2
Oh, it's cold here right now. So enjoy your summer. Yeah.

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Speaker 1
So it's not much of a summer out here right now, but I mean, it has been pretty nice, but this week is supposed to be rainy. But I always forget that the. The seasons are swapped in.

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Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1
All right, all right. Maybe I'll. Maybe I'll come in in January or February. When?

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Speaker 2
Yeah. You should really love it.

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Speaker 1
Yeah.

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Speaker 2
You definitely should.

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Speaker 1
Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Not only do you have a ton of experience in design, but I know that we're going to dove into it a little bit later. But you're also really interested in sort of the neuroscience behind packaging decisions and in human psychology. So I think it'll be really interesting. Really interesting conversation.

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Speaker 1
Do you mind just giving the listeners a little bit of insight into your history within design, packaging, CPG?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, sure. Let me see. To make a long story short, I realized I like graphic design when I was seven and started copying the levels of my favorite brands into a notebook. Of course, I didn't know there was a professional career back then with that name. So as you can imagine, I graduated as a graphic designer and started designing mainly logos and visual identities.

00;02;43;04 - 00;03;21;19
Speaker 2
But then I was showing an agency that works mainly with magazines, and I've been working with global brands ever since, such as Unilever, Kimberly-Clark, Nestlé, PepsiCo, RBI, Clorox, Danone, among others. So I've been in the subsea or fast moving business for more than 15 years, working with almost every category, but mostly with food and beverage and personal care.

00;03;22;23 - 00;03;57;15
Speaker 2
So I have a lot of experience working with private label as well. One of those was level the landing in the US in 2017 and back then we hadn't them designing and adopting their portfolio to the US market goes I. Over three years we design more than 600 magazine and during that time I used to visit the US, allowed to observe the market, study the shelves and understand the consumers.

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Speaker 2
And that's when I fell in love with that. With the US market. I really loved the diversity, the innovation, the openness of consumer to nontraditional design. So that was a real challenge for me and then Kobe Kidd and like everyone else, I had more time to do things I couldn't do before or lack the energy to do so.

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Speaker 2
At first I catch up with branding. Then I started researching, researching and reading a lot of a lot about consumer behavior, which opened many doors for me and made me understand what really was under the hood. But there was still some question that I needed to answer, so I ended the journey reading about how our brains work with all the findings of neuroscience.

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Speaker 2
But all the info I found was related to neuromarketing and there was almost nothing focus on black. So I came up with the idea of pulling together all this information from neuroscience, cognitive and evolutionary psychology, behavioral science, behavioral economics to understand how the relationship between consumer and podcasting really works. You know, and this is what I coined in Europe magazine that I'm following the story of the at that point, I opened my own studio and began to apply this new approach to branding and brushes.

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Speaker 2
And I can tell you it really works.

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Speaker 1
So yeah, I'm really excited to hear more about that. I'm really curious though. You said you kind of fell in love with the U.S. market and consumers openness to maybe nontraditional pack designs. Can you give me an example of what you mean by nontraditional pack design?

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Speaker 2
Well, if you, I don't know, stand in front of them off the shelf. In the U.S., you can see a lot of different brands, different different tiers, different ultra categories. So maybe you should visit like a market from South America to understand this comparison, because there there's a lot of difference between each market and I don't know, you have like a lot of I don't know, maybe you can select from a lot of different options and and that's that's a huge difference between each market.

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Speaker 2
That's what I'm referring to. And yeah, cool.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. I was just curious about that. Obviously I work in marketing, but I don't work in design, so I'm always, always interested in kind of the way that designers approach. So kind of along a similar line when we think about traditional versus nontraditional packaging design or when we think about, you know, myths about good pack design versus bad pack design, can you debunk any of those for us based on your experience, like I guess a better way of asking this is what are some of the myths about pack design that you, you kind of don't subscribe to?

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Speaker 2
That's a good question. Well, unfortunately, there are quite a few of them. And what I realize is that these misunderstandings cost brands money, energy costs down. The first thing the first thing I see everywhere and I know I will win some critics is that the packaging must make the consumer fall in love. You know, the consumer buys with emotion and the consumer will connect to your brand or your brother's done all that mumbo jumbo stuff.

00;08;32;11 - 00;09;15;01
Speaker 2
But the reality is far from that. That's not really driving any purchase decision. I'm I'm not saying that the brand must be attractive, appealing or rational, distinctive and catch your curiosity. But at the end of the day, the consumer buys the probe because he or she assumes that it will fulfill its need and goals, or because he wants to reward himself for achieving something, or because he wants to feel that he's giving the best for his family, or even because he wants to gain some status, some of his friends or group or just to be cool and keep.

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Speaker 2
You know, there are many reasons, but none of them are because he falls in love with the packaging or because a certain emotion arise and takes control over his mind. Most of our decisions are made on autopilot mode, so leaving emotion out of the table, we need to focus on the goals that the audience want to achieve with a brother or even with the brand.

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Speaker 2
And and this way we avoid, I think, creating false exportations to the brands. And I've seen many found founders brand holders are disappointed they the consumer connect with your brand. But believe me that they don't spend as much uncertainty as you think. And another very common myth is the one I call the 5/2 rule. It claims it takes only 5 seconds or less to decide which one of you will buy emotion.

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Speaker 2
You have the analogy. Well, this is entirely relative. You know, in any case, it's not a matter of time. It's a matter of energy, because our brain is in the energy saving mode most of the day. So speaking of how long it takes the consumer to decide what to buy is to misunderstand the purchase segment or proceed in it's way much more complex than that.

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Speaker 2
And for example, you only need to do standing in a grocery or supermarket and watch the shoppers to understand how the behavior difference between them and between each product, between the two years and categories, it is also assume that there is only one type of consumer when in fact there are several types. For example, there is a shopper who buys for the whole family, another who shops for a specific amount.

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Speaker 2
People who live alone and shop only for oneself. They may stick to a shopping leads and so on. And also consumer behavior. Gospel is not the same as Whole Foods for example. Even the moment of the day plays a role. If you go shopping before having any meal or when you are hungry, you will probably feel more attracted to snack food products.

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Speaker 2
And and the third move, which I also see or hear very often, is that if the packaging the stance enough, it is going to be sold like a simple occasion. You know, and maybe it works by getting the shoppers attention, but that doesn't mean it will lead to a sale. For example, I had a client that wanted to use bright colors for the magazine to attract attention.

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Speaker 2
They were really focused on getting the shoppers attention, but actually they have a natural products. Probably the shopper associates, bright color with a narrow string, soft drink or maybe a soda. The that definitely are not related with something natural. So of course it's important to stand out but again, it's even more important not to lose sight of the consumer goal and the culture and the mental models and associations they can build inside that culture.

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Speaker 1
That makes total sense. I mean, how do you approach? I really like the the mental model comment that you just made, like how do you how do you kind of approach getting into the psyche of the customer for any sort of given, you know, new new packaging brief that you get? How do you approach that?

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Speaker 2
Well, first of all, we need to understand, like the audience of this is off of the brand or of the product. And and by this, I mean try to navigate all the the touchpoints and all the the media and the other products that this audience consume or visit or I don't know, frequently am CEO watch or like try to be in their shoes and and and start creating this models with all these behaviors with all these, I don't know attendance to for example, the type of or the the type of movies they watch, the type of shows, type of podcast type of clothes, the type of an electronics shoes, and start to understand like all

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Speaker 2
the behavior and and draw a line and start to join the dots between all this and all these like stimuli, the, the, the use to consume. And I don't know if that makes any sense.

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Speaker 1
It does. Yeah. So what you're saying is that you essentially look at like their reference points or like the difference. Yeah, the reference points and as you said, like the types of brands that they buy or the types of products that they like or the media that they consume, that makes total sense. So I guess it's like mapping that out to get a better sense of where they're drawing or where they would be pulling references from.

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Speaker 2
Right? Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah.

00;15;29;25 - 00;15;52;22
Speaker 1
I feel like I'm kind of stepping on the toes of my next question, which is really about that sort of neuro packaging that you kind of mentioned at the end of the opening. So we talked about how you come from a design background, but you really recently started focusing on the science behind.

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Speaker 2
Packaging.

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Speaker 1
And sort of mixing art and science together. Can you talk to us a little bit about what you kind of define neuro packaging as?

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Speaker 2
Yeah, sure. Um, well, what I realized is that understanding how our brains work and how we behave is, is key to judging whatever or not. Design or branding can work. This is also something that should be learned. I think, in college, and that really applies to all disciplines, understanding how we behave, how we make decisions, or even how our brains process information could save a lot of money, energy and time.

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Speaker 2
So it's very helpful to to have all this data when you approach process is like do I don't know and a very useful tool. So I like to read empirical studies about behaviors related to particular related to packaging on food. And when you see their results, they make perfect sense. When combined with neuroscience theories, for example, how the taste perception of a product can change depending on how it is presented or what color its use.

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Speaker 2
What to place a photo in the design. If we want to combine lightness, how to place information, how much information and so on. So every element, no matter how small, has an impact that in some cases can be worth millions in revenue or even loses income. And this is not a silver bullet that guarantees success, but it definitely reduce the chance of making big mistakes.

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Speaker 2
That can even mean the failure of a startup, if you think about it. So let's let's take the example of running this one. This was one of the last project we worked on in my agency that they won the Nonspeech slam a month ago. And to give you a little background on the ground running is better for you brownies the search that not containing a traditional ingredients like refined sugar or fats a large amount of carbs.

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Speaker 2
And we need we needed to communicate that but in a distinctive and attractive way, of course. So first we develop a brand strategy by the Sun in the context the market and competitors defining the personality and message and defining the home and what it should be communicated. And based on this, we then decide which aspect should be communicated and in which penalty.

00;19;05;16 - 00;19;41;22
Speaker 2
For example indulgence, lightness, healthiness and so on. It's like, you know, it's like tuning the knobs to talk to, to achieve, like the outcome that we know for. So finally, we we made what is called the semantic network of the consumer. And you asked me about this before. And this is we tried to qualify all the models, the consumer makeup up in this universe that the brand plus the living.

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Speaker 2
And these models help us to refine the images, fonts, copies, you know, styles and once we have defined this universe, we think about the how coach presses and that this fine knowledge of your packaging is key. For example, that a product placed on the top or left side of the front of the packaging makes it feel lighter. Or if we have all the benefits of France, or we generate a cognitive overload in the consumer and this knowledge is building.

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Speaker 2
It's not intuitive or based on gut feeling. It's based on scientific studies and behavioral theories that back it up. And lastly, we also use what they call processing fluency. Test processing fluency refers to day to day is which our brains processing information. So we evaluate all the frictions. Now the packaging design may have and say say before we tune the knobs of that design and communication to to achieve the best possible outcome result.

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Speaker 1
Very cool. And it has that packaging gone live.

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Speaker 2
Yeah it is. Yeah. Cool.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay well try and find a link to share it when we're sharing the the the episode. That's really interesting. And do you.

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Speaker 2
Find that sorry they actually won them the last nudge 2022 a slam like a month ago.

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Speaker 1
Oh yeah. I missed that part. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Nash doesn't like the Food and Bars publication.

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Speaker 2
Right?

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Speaker 1
Yeah, that's so cool. Definitely. Well, we can. I'm sure we can find a link to that. That's, that's really awesome. And do you feel like your approach so this neuro packaging approach is really unique in the market or would you say it's something that more people are adopting? Yeah. What's your take on that.

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Speaker 2
Mm. Well they haven't said it out loud about this approach. I to be honest I really don't know. I, I use that because it's something unique and I want to stand out or something like that. I use it because it really helps and it really makes my job easier, you know, and because you can realize the problem or you can see the problem, like in an instance, it's, it's very, it's very easy to, to, to define like a problem in a packaging.

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Speaker 2
If you are redesigning, for example, it's, it's make the shop much more easier for me. Yeah. So I don't know. And to be honest I don't know anyone is using it, huh?

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Speaker 1
No, I hope no.

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Speaker 2
But but I think that.

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Speaker 1
You know, it's, it's working. So, you know, it's not a it's not some, like, flashy new thing that you've added to your, you know, tool kit. It's it's actually something that you feel like makes the work a lot better.

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Speaker 2
Yeah.

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Speaker 1
Definite is great.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. Those are not fancy words and subsidy that it's really worth carrying out.

00;23;40;09 - 00;24;09;14
Speaker 1
Okay, cool. Well, in the we're moving into the rapid fire portion of the interview, so we're about to finish up just a few more questions for you. And we like to ask a similar variety of questions to everyone we interview for you. These are all around packaging. So if you could redesign the brand's packaging, I guess consumer packaged goods, maybe, which brand would it be?

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Speaker 2
Hmm. Uh, that's a hard question, because I always try to be respectful of the work of others, so I don't know if there is a particular brand, but I see in the market too many packaging designs that are full of information or graphic. That's why I referred to previously as Cognitive Overload and discusses tremendous friction and makes it very difficult for consumers to understand what kind of product it is or what the brand is trying to tell them.

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Speaker 2
So it's made me want to clean them up. What I usually tell my client is, don't try to be clever, I'll try to be clear, you know. So maybe it's not just one packaging a I think there are the ones that miss the marks with those kind of things.

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Speaker 1
Right. Trying to put to like less is more essentially.

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Speaker 2
Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Because I know, I know a lot of brands try to, to, to get like this application and I know that's hard but you don't need to put all, all the, the certification on the front, you know, and there's always need to be a balance between the, the, the, the information, like I said before, the cognitive overload and the some of the information you put in front of the cashier and the consumer.

00;25;52;09 - 00;26;10;06
Speaker 2
Really, really, I don't know care about. So yeah, I think you need to balance what you want to say and what the consumer is willing to understand or is willing to perceive. You know, it's like a balance.

00;26;11;00 - 00;26;18;23
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay, awesome. And what's the coolest CPG packaging that you've seen lately?

00;26;18;23 - 00;26;56;21
Speaker 2
Um, well, I find it very interesting what is happening in the cereal category. I think the brands emerge in that space are super cool, like off limits, mass spawn three wishes. What else? Cereal. In the UK they're using new codes for the category and what's happen is what I mentioned before, which is that to build big brands like Kellogg's in this case are becoming updated.

00;26;56;27 - 00;27;14;15
Speaker 2
You know, but they probably end up buying all of those brands like the beer most of the company did with the craft beers. So I really like what is happening with that category with this brands.

00;27;15;00 - 00;27;38;25
Speaker 1
That's so it's so funny that you mentioned off limits because I wasn't aware of off limits until like a week ago we had I did an interview with the ambassador will probably be out by the time your episode lands but with a guy named Tyler who founded a company called Jamie. And he has, I guess, been working with the founder of Off Limits as a mentor.

00;27;40;08 - 00;27;52;06
Speaker 1
And yeah, we were checking out the site and it's so interesting what they're doing with their packaging and the way that they're branding. So it's cool that they're getting shouted out twice and yeah.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. I love and I also know. Tyler Oh, oh. Okay, cool.

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Speaker 1
Oh, amazing. Okay. Small world.

00;28;01;10 - 00;28;06;18
Speaker 2
Is Mom to some small family. Yeah. Awesome.

00;28;06;18 - 00;28;31;12
Speaker 1
Okay. And final question is just about packaging trends, obviously. You know, we just mentioned there's maybe a trend going on. Trends sometimes has a negative connotation, but there's something going on within the cereal space with the way that they're approaching their design. Are you noticing anything else in the packaging space that people should be on the lookout for?

00;28;32;00 - 00;29;22;21
Speaker 2
Hmm. I think the trend I've seen in recent years is to challenge the cause of cultural or, you know, when we see that, for example, we look at liquid liquid that a few years ago with bars or or lollipop with soda or. Well, they say the cereal brands that I just mentioned. And the interesting thing about this brand is that they create like a universe with different assets and touchpoints such as period toys, racecars, you name it, and and also this is how I think you get a solid brand.

00;29;23;23 - 00;29;53;26
Speaker 2
But but that basically would give 2 to 2 brand owners is to try to be distinctive because it happens a lot. And the brand owners founders or see me or see O's or whatever see that this brands are succeeding. They think this is the path that we should take. But at the end of the day, they all look the same and end up turning something that it was original and unique into a commodity.

00;29;54;05 - 00;30;03;27
Speaker 2
So for me, the trend is and always will be distinctiveness. That's true for me.

00;30;03;27 - 00;30;07;04
Speaker 1
I guess that's a trend that lasts a long time.

00;30;07;22 - 00;30;12;23
Speaker 2
Yeah, that will last forever I think. Observer Yeah, definitely.

00;30;13;07 - 00;30;24;29
Speaker 1
Fernando This was really interesting. I learned a lot and I'm sure the listeners will too. Where can people find you or learn about what you guys are working on? Admitted.

00;30;24;29 - 00;30;41;00
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure. They can reach me on my linked in my just my name from there and that or the website or Instagram. I don't know. It's a lot of channels that they can follow. Yeah.

00;30;41;11 - 00;30;41;22
Speaker 1
Great.

00;30;42;07 - 00;30;49;27
Speaker 2
But I want to thank you for having me on the show, being on your show. And thanks a lot.

00;30;50;23 - 00;31;16;04
Speaker 1
Of course. Yeah. Hopefully we can follow up in a little while to see how things are going with you. But for now I will say goodbye. And to the listeners I'll talk to you next week. Thanks for tuning in. This week find us on LinkedIn at Digg Insights. And don't forget to hit subscribe for a weekly dose of fresh content.