The packaging silently says 'cheap' even though the product is very good

The shelf is a silent competition

At a cosmetics counter in a supermarket or a specialized retail chain, customers do not read labels. They scan with their eyes. In a few seconds, the brain categorizes each product into one of two groups: worth considering further, or not. That decision occurs at an intuitive level, based entirely on visual signals.

The difficulty is that this visual signal is not simply "beautiful" or "ugly." It carries an unspoken message about segment, about professionalism, about a brand's commitment to its own product. A jar of cream in cloudy plastic, with cramped lettering and a yellowed printed label, suggests a price somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 dong. That happens regardless of what ingredients are inside. The customer's brain doesn't wait to read the formula.

Thorakao: a brand betrayed by its packaging

Thorakao is a rare example that contrasts with the norm. This brand has existed for over 50 years in the Vietnamese market, has a solid formula foundation, a history, and long-term loyal customers. That is no small asset.

But on the shelf, Thorakao is almost invisible to new customers. The packaging speaks the visual language of the 1990s: highly saturated colors, heavy decorative lettering, crowded layouts. To a young buyer today, that jar of cream doesn't suggest a "trusted, long-established brand." It suggests a "cheap product from a traditional market." Even though the formula inside is no weaker than many imported products in the same segment, the gap between substance and image has created a barrier customers never cross, because they have no reason to try it.

The packaging doesn't make the product any worse. But it keeps telling new customers: "This product isn't for you."

Cocoon: when the packaging actively tells a story

Cocoon does almost the opposite. This Vietnamese vegan cosmetics brand does not have a 50-year history, nor the marketing budget of foreign corporations. But from the start, they chose visual language as a positioning statement.

Cocoon's packaging tells one clear story: native Vietnamese ingredients, transparent formulas, no animal testing. Each of those elements is translated into a specific design decision: a neutral background color, minimal typography, hand-drawn illustrations of regional ingredients. When customers pick up the jar, they read the story without reading a single word.

Cocoon also has third-party certifications: Leaping Bunny, PETA, Vegan Society. These certifications appear directly on the packaging, at the touchpoint, at the moment of purchase decision. This is how to turn commitment into a visible, trustworthy signal.

The screen changes the whole game

If physical shelves are demanding, phone screens are even more so. When products are displayed on TikTok, Instagram, or e-commerce product pages, the packaging shrinks to about 200 to 400 pixels in width. At that size, most information on the label disappears. What remains is the shape, the dominant color, and perhaps one word or logo.

Packaging designed for the physical shelf, with many crowded layers of information, almost completely collapses on a screen. By contrast, screen-first packaging (designed with screens as the priority) keeps its identity at every size. It is built from the fewest elements: one block of color, one symbol, one typeface strong enough to stand on its own.

A brand is not a logo. A brand is the gut feeling customers have about a product, service, or company.

Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap

When designing packaging, focusing only on physical shelves means the brand is overlooking a significant part of the modern purchasing journey. Customers see the product on screen before they hold it in their hands. That first impression determines whether they will stop to learn more.

Three signs the packaging is undermining positioning

It is not always easy to recognize harmful packaging. Here are a few specific signs:

• Customers praise the product after using it but do not make a first purchase without a direct recommendation.
• The conversion rate on the product page is low despite high ratings and good ingredients.
• It is difficult to price the product higher even if the formula is equivalent to or exceeds competitors in the same segment.
• Product images on social media are rarely shared, even if the content is well-invested.
• Distribution partners or wholesale buyers ask about a “packaging improvement plan” before discussing price.

These signs are often explained by other causes: not enough advertising, prices not competitive, distribution not wide enough. Packaging is rarely seen as a variable that needs to change.

The right way to think about design investment

Packaging is not just a printing cost. It is the storefront of the product, the first point of contact, the reason a customer stops or walks past. When a brand treats packaging design as an incidental expense, it usually optimizes in the wrong direction. It saves here, pours money into advertising to draw customers in, and then lets the packaging judge itself.

Research from McKinsey across 300 companies over 5 years shows that businesses that invest seriously in design achieve revenue growth well above the rest. Design in this study is not only packaging. But packaging is the first and densest touchpoint in the lifecycle of a fast-moving consumer product.

In the cosmetics industry, the problem is even more urgent because the barrier to entry is almost zero. Anyone can commission a bottle of serum with a copied formula, put on a new label, and sell it on marketplaces. In that environment, packaging design is one of the few things that can't be copied quickly. It is tied to a story, to values, to the commitments a brand has built over time. Thorakao has a history no one can copy. But that history is being hidden by the packaging instead of amplified by it.

Cocoon proves that a Vietnamese brand can compete with imports not by imitating the visual language of Korea or France, but by finding its own style and executing it consistently from packaging to media channels. It is the harder path. But it is the only one that creates something irreplaceable.