Modern packaging drives me nuts: Part 1

Back in my magazine days, one of the most interesting people I interviewed was Richard Reed – co-founder of Innocent Drinks.

I wrote the piece in 2000 when the company was just starting out.  Their mega-success was still a few years away – as was their eventual partial sale to Coke.

But there was one thing that was already firmly in place when I visited them: their schtick.

Richard and I talked on deckchairs outside their office/factory on an unglamorous industrial estate off Goldhawk Road – a building they’d cutely dubbed Fruit Towers.

Daisy the “cow van” – complete with udders, a tail and eyelashes on the headlights – was parked alongside us (cue perfect photo opportunity).

The company’s backstory was already finely honed for maximum “quirky entrepreneur” appeal.

And – last but definitely not least - the labels on the dozen smoothies which they kindly gave me to take home were dotted with little quips, puns and jokes.

Innocent’s labels were unique at the time (not just in the drinks business, but in the UK FMCG field as a whole). They were whimsical and irreverent. With a very light touch, they communicated something profound about the character of the brand.

And people loved them – so much so that the company eventually posted an archive of past classics here.

As Innocent’s success grew, the inevitable happened. Other brands tried to follow -  making their own labels less formal. More “inclusive”. Chattier.

What those other brands had forgotten was this: writing that kind of stuff effectively is hard. Really bloody hard. But that wasn’t going to dissuade them from churning out their own cack-handed attempts.

Which brings us to the present day.

In the supermarket this weekend I lost count of the number of products attempting to pull off Innocent’s trick.

Pseudo-matey straplines on packets. Really, really strained jokes that wouldn’t have reached the wastepaper basket at Innocent, let alone the printers. Instructions full of slighly desperate, Jamie Oliver-style exhortations to “bung it in the oven at 220 degrees, then stick your feet up for half an hour”.

And – my absolute pet hate – “positioning statements” like:

We’re obsessed about yogurt. Some might say passionate. Hey – maybe even a bit obsessed. So sue us. Our chef was so excited when he made this blend, he phoned up all his mates and…

Gah!

It’s become an epidemic. And in my capacity as  - if I may be so bold – a connoisseur of great writing in small, trivial, unlikely environments (like cornflake packets and bus tickets), it gets right on my nerves.

So this is part 1 of an ongoing series. In future the most gear-grinding, teeth-gnashing examples I spot will be flagged up here.

Together we can rid Britain’s shops of this scourge.