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 challenge is that this visual signal is not simply "beautiful" or "ugly." It conveys an implicit message about the segment, about professionalism, about the brand's commitment to its own products. A cream jar with opaque plastic packaging, a shriveled font, and a yellowed label will evoke a price range of 20,000 to 50,000 VND, regardless of what ingredients are inside. The customer's brain does not 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.

However, looking at the shelves, Thorakao is almost invisible to new customers. The packaging carries a visual language from the 1990s: highly saturated colors, heavy decorative fonts, and a cluttered layout of information. For today's young buyers, that jar of cream does not evoke "a prestigious long-standing brand"; it suggests "a cheap product at a traditional market." Although the formula inside is comparable to many imported products in the same segment, the gap between substance and image has created a barrier that customers will never cross because they have no reason to try.

Packaging does not make the product worse. But it continuously tells new customers: "This product is not 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 a clear story: locally sourced Vietnamese ingredients, transparent components, no animal testing. Each of these elements translates into specific design decisions: neutral background colors, minimalist typography, hand-drawn illustrations of regional ingredients. When customers pick up the jar, they read the story without needing to read 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 physical shelves, with layers of cluttered information, almost completely collapses on screens. In contrast, screen-first packaging maintains recognition at all sizes because it builds from the fewest elements: a block of color, a symbol, a typeface strong enough to stand alone.

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.
• Distributors or wholesale buyers ask about the "packaging improvement plan" before discussing prices.

These signs are often explained by other reasons: insufficient advertising, uncompetitive pricing, limited distribution channels. Packaging is rarely placed on the table as a variable that needs changing.

The right way to think about design investment

Packaging is not a printing cost. It is the face of the product, the first point of contact, the reason for customers to stop or walk past. When a brand views packaging design as an expense, they often optimize in the wrong direction: saving here, pouring money into advertising to draw customers in, only to let the packaging judge itself.

Research from McKinsey on 300 companies over 5 years shows that businesses that seriously invest in design achieve significantly higher revenue growth compared to the rest. Design in this study is not just packaging, but packaging is the first and most frequent touchpoint in the fast-moving consumer goods lifecycle.

In the cosmetics industry, the challenge is even more pressing because the barriers to entry are almost nonexistent. Anyone can produce a serum with a copied formula, slap on a new label, and sell it online. In that environment, packaging design is one of the few things that cannot be quickly replicated: it is tied to the story, the values, and the commitments that the brand has built over time. Thorakao has a history that cannot be copied. But that history is being obscured by packaging rather than amplified.

Cocoon demonstrates that a Vietnamese brand can compete with imported goods not by mimicking the visual language of Korea or France, but by finding its own voice and executing it consistently from packaging to communication channels. This is the harder path but the only one that creates something irreplaceable.