Your product is delicious, but it is dying silently on the shelf
In a supermarket with over thirty thousand products, good taste alone cannot save an invisible packaging.
Many food brand owners believe that having a delicious product is enough. However, a customer standing in front of a supermarket shelf cannot taste your product. They can only look, for a few seconds, among thousands of choices.
Three seconds before the shelf
Mr. A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter and Gamble, referred to the three to five seconds when customers see a product on the shelf as the "first moment of truth." In that moment, it is the packaging, not the advertising, that grabs attention and decides whether the customer picks up the product.
A supermarket has over thirty thousand items, and customers' eyes may not even scan two-thirds of the displayed labels. Packaging that looks fine on a design screen can get lost when placed next to competitors in real life. According to a survey by Ipsos, the majority of buyers say that packaging design often influences their decisions.
Why "copying competitors for safety" is a death sentence.
To play it safe, many brands follow the industry's conventional path, producing packaging that looks like their competitors instead of standing out. However, the marketing science from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute shows the opposite: buyers choose what is easy to recognize and remember. The task of identity is not to prove differentiation, but to make the brand stand out enough to pop into the customer's mind at the right moment. Packaging that looks exactly like everything around it is invisible.
Modernize your packaging, and lose loyal customers.
On the flip side, refreshing packaging can be risky if done incorrectly. In 2009, Tropicana changed all its orange juice packaging at once, removing the iconic image of an orange with a straw, which had been a long-standing identity asset. Customers skimmed past and no longer recognized the product they had trusted. Sales plummeted within two months, and the company had to revert to the old packaging. The lesson: when refreshing, keep the assets that customers use to recognize you, and change gradually rather than all at once.
After the scandal, customers only trust what they can see.
In Vietnam, there is an additional layer: trust. After a series of food safety scandals, customers have entered a phase where they only trust what they can see with their own eyes. According to a survey by iPOS and Nestlé, when choosing a restaurant, customers prioritize cleanliness and safety certifications over advertising claims. For brands, this means that transparency and visible trust signals have become part of the identity, not just compliance.
Sinh Vũ builds food identities to achieve three goals simultaneously: to be recognized in one second on the shelf, to maintain distinctive assets over time, and to emit the trust signals that customers need to see before believing in the flavor.
References
A.G. Lafley, First Moment of Truth (P&G) · Ipsos for Paper and Packaging Board (2018) · Nielsen, CPG product failure rates · The Branding Journal (Tropicana) · iPOS x Nestlé Vietnam 2025.Frequently asked questions
Does my food product packaging need redesigning if sales are still stable?
Current sales are not the only measure. The additional questions to ask are: which channels is the product sold in, do customers buy out of habit or by active choice, and is the brand losing market share at new points of sale? Many food brands retain old customers but fail to attract new ones because their packaging does not pass the three-second shelf test.
Does changing the packaging lose loyal customers?
There is a risk if changes are too abrupt or if elements that customers use to recognize the product are removed. A safer approach is to retain at least one or two core identity signals while upgrading the rest. Many large brands use a gradual change approach so that customers can get used to the new look without feeling that the product has changed hands.
After a food safety scandal, can design help regain trust?
Design alone is not enough, but it plays a crucial role in conveying the substantial changes that the brand has made. After a scandal, customers do not read press releases; they look at the packaging, the point of sale, and how the brand presents itself at daily touchpoints. If the brand has truly changed its processes but the packaging and design remain the same, that message of change will not reach consumers.