supermarkets Archives - Williams Murray Hamm

When lockdown happened, I imagined that everything was going to hell in a handcart and I’d cling on to things I knew and trusted. A metaphorical reaching out for the banister rail.

In fact, I’ve done the opposite. BBC Radio has been the first casualty. I never want to hear a politician ever again, so bang, out goes the Today programme. You and Yours and Woman’s Hour make me glum, so no thanks. I have discovered Scala Radio as I wake with the sunrise and it’s as though I’m in the park. Lockdown bliss.

Roaming the supermarket aisles, as I have always done since I started out as a designer, is now strictly verboten. Packaging design was, and remains, my first love and the supermarket has been both my art gallery and social anthropology laboratory. Watching people scan the shelves and pick up something we’ve been involved in has always had a frisson about it. How did we capture their attention and what tipped them over the line into putting the product into their basket? Online grocery shopping offers none of this. It is like the difference between Spotify and vinyl. Super convenient, but utterly soulless. Nothing beats picking up a product, turning it over in the hand, feeling its weight and, of course, looking at the label. Call me sad, but it is one of life’s simple pleasures.

Back to my first supermarket love

An unexpected change is the enforced switch of supermarkets. After years of loyal shopping, Waitrose doesn’t seem to want me and Ocado is too unpredictable, so I’m back where I started. Sainsbury’s is ‘my supermarket’ again. They were dead easy to sign up with and their delivery people are delightful, but what has happened to the brand that Peter Dixon and, on occasions, Williams Murray Hamm laboured so hard to make classy, intelligent and joyful? As one unloads the bags, where’s the story? I just can’t make out what the brand stands for. What is all this ‘by Sainsbury’s’ branding and what in heaven’s name is ‘Stamford Street Food Company’? Has anyone walked down Stamford Street lately? Let’s just say it’s not Tenterden High Street. If ever there were a right time to reshape Sainsbury’s, to make us fall back in love with it, it is now.

I didn’t expect to drop the BBC and I thought that Waitrose and I were pals for life. We will see if those relationships are revived if lockdown ever ends. One other quite unexpected change of behaviour is the joy to be found in anticipation. I am not gifted with patience. It is not a virtue and generally gets in the way of doing stuff, but my lockdown has seen a subtle change in this.

I am to be found, for the odd hour or two, wielding power tools and timber as I attempt to rebuild some rotten decking. With the closure of DIY stores, I have to rely on various businesses all around the country to deliver the multitude of fixings that Builder Bodge needs.

The excitement of home deliveries

‘My 6-inch Hex bolts have arrived!’ won last week’s loudest whoop. The big tease was that they couldn’t be touched until the next day in case there was Covid all over them. They took on the same lure as the Hornby Trains Royal Mail Van I lusted over in a Boxing Day shop window in 1960. Learning to wait has been rather wonderful.

There are, of course, vital items that one misses in lockdown. Marmite went AWOL from Sainsbury’s online. If you were desperate it could be found on eBay for £6.99 for a jar, plus £4 postage. Apparently, they’ve sold 48 of them so far. It makes one think about brand value. What brands would you pay extortionate prices for if they went missing? A quick scan of eBay shows a can of Ambrosia custard selling for £7 (inc postage) and a 1.5kg pack of Allinson’s Strong White Bread flour for £12 (admittedly the postage is a whopping £8). But then eBay is a mad place. Who in their right minds would buy Andrex ‘Natural Pebble’ lavatory rolls? A snip at £33.78 for 45 rolls by the way – it seems they are in ‘New Condition’ which is, no pun intended, a relief.

Author: Richard Williams

‘Is it curtains for design agency claptrap?’

Following the recent UK launch of Amazon Fresh, Richard Williams and Garrick Hamm explore the Love and Hate of the brand packaging ‘First Moment of Truth’ in the digital age on online grocery shopping.

Hate: Packaging

Many years ago, Procter and Gamble came up with the idea of ‘The First Moment of Truth’.

This was all about how packaging works in the supermarket and how first impressions really count. I can’t remember what the second and third moments of truth were, something about bar codes probably.

I wonder what P&G thinks about the FMOT of their brands as they appear in online shopping. Does it bring on an FMOH (First Moment of Horror)? Here’s the truth. Brands look dreadful on Ocado and as we’re about to be invaded by Amazon Fresh they need to do something now.

Since it’s only partially available in the UK, I had to pretend to live in the Empire State Building (ZIP code 10118) to be able to access it. What is glaringly obvious is that, if Amazon Fresh really takes off, (the British Retail Consortium predicts that 900,000 jobs will be lost by 2025 as the industry moves online) the claptrap and mumbo jumbo that packaging design agencies have peddled for years, in an effort to cover up their lack of creativity, will have no further use.

There is no ‘shelf blocking’ since there aren’t any shelves to block and you can’t see any ‘category cues’ or ‘appetite appeal’ because the pack shots are so tiny, the copy is illegible and everything is low res. The game’s up. Brands have to find a new way to work for online shopping and it’s a wonderful, thrilling opportunity.

Love: Smiles

Hopefully Amazon Fresh really will lead to a completely different way of presenting brands on screen. They’re going to have to look at simple visual mnemonics. It could even lead to a new golden era where intelligent, meaningful logos represent a brand instead of dull old packaging.

Actually, this is really just a gratuitous excuse to talk about the recently updated ‘A Smile in the Mind’. Along with Alan Fletcher’s ‘The Art of Looking Sideways’ it is one of the must-have books on engaging, intelligent design. I’ve always loved those clever little logos that give a business personality.

The original Spratt’s pet food logo is clunky and artless, but incredibly endearing. Dog happiness is built right into it. I also came across this little beauty for Knapp Shoes (obviously) by Chermayeff & Geismar Inc. in New York. It’s a lovely witty mark. Simple and clever. How could you resist? Similarly, Norbert Dutton’s 1959 logo for electronics business, Plessey, is something we’d be proud to have done today.

(left) Spratts – Logo designed by Max Field-Bush (UK). Copyright (second extension) 2016, Julien Clairet of DATA ACCESS Paris. / (middle) Knapp Shoes – Logo designed by Charmayeff & Geismar Inc. / (right) The Plessey Company Ltd – Logo designed by Norbert Dutton’s 1959

With wit like this, think what you could do for a brand like Bird’s Eye or Flash. We won’t see the end of supermarket packaging by any means and I fear that we won’t lose steamy shots of soup and stringy cheese slices on pizza packs, but perhaps Amazon Fresh, unwittingly, will lead to a design revolution where we go back to intelligent, beautifully thought through brand identities.

I can’t wait.

Authors: Richard Williams & Garrick Hamm.

For any press enquiries email press@wmhagency.com or call +44 (0) 20 3217 0000.

Williams Murray Hamm

supermarkets

Letting go in lockdown