Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Swizec | Hacker News Reader

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You can see this effect in real life. Go to a supermarket and observe the packaging.

Most brands are screaming over each other with bright colors and discount badges and badges promoting this or that benefit that the same product from the brand next to to this one totally doesn’t have. The aisles are completely overwhelming and you can barely even tell what’s in the box anymore.

Then you see the brand aimed at less price conscious consumers. The price is higher, but the box is a plain solid color with a nice font and just says “Rice”. Nothing else. Just rice. Or cereal. Or whatever.

You see similar effects on the internet. The good stuff just doesn’t feel as shouty (look at HN). Calm is a signal of quality. Noise gets ignored.

That's funny, because over here in Europe private labels who use simple, unenticing packaging are aimed at price conscious consumers, while premium buyers want 'sophisticated' packaging. Maybe we are at a different part of the cycle?

I don't even think what they say holds in the US either - so must be elsewhere.

In the U.S you have brand name with their often noisy labels full of marketing - and then store brand (which is often the exact same stuff as the brand name in different packaging - or stuff that was rejected from quality control of the name brand so is almost the same stuff just slightly worse by some unknown metric). I buy store brand for basically everything but a few food items where the quality is worse enough to be off-putting. Store brand labels aren't quite as plain as No Name labels but are usually a bit more bespoke or just "lower quality" like they didn't want to pay for a graphic designer so had some intern whip up a graphic for the label.

I know the U.K has No Name brand which to my understanding also markets itself as the cheaper no-fuss alternative?

I think there’s 2 sides that use simple packaging with opposite effects. I’m not enough of a designer to know how that works.

You have simple but cheap looking and you have simple but clean and sophisticated looking. Look at Apple’s branding as a good example of the latter.

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