Dear brand owners, print buyers, you are told that small color differences will hurt trust in your brand, eventually resulting in loss of sales. Which is, of course, a terrifying idea, something you want to avoid at all costs. But here’s an important question: did anyone ever show you any proof that this happens in real life? Did you ever question that statement? Check out what has been happening with Oreo, over the last two years, when using two different versions of their logo, over 10 dE00 apart, side by side on the shelves… Short version: there is no proof to be found that this had any effect on their sales, or trust in the Oreo brand.
That claim that small color differences will hurt sales, has been around for a very long time. The oldest reference I found, was from a color consultant, promoting her services. And that’s what links most of the people who are promoting that – unproven – claim: they sell color-related services and tools. It’s an important marketing message, not a validated result from a science-based study. It’s fearmongering.
So, when I noticed that several Oreo packages on the shelves showed a new logo, 2 years ago, I took a picture and bought several packages to be able to measure the difference: over 10 dE00 (which is considered a very large color difference in print). And for a long time – two years, and counting – I regularly checked the shelves with the Oreo logos. And since that first day, every time I checked, I noticed packages with different logos. The old logo has a 3-dimensional design, the new logo is a flat design and the dominant blue is much darker. However, the change from 3D to flat design is subtle, you have to look carefully to be able to notice it. What is much easier to notice, is the color difference.
And here we are: two years after I first noticed the different logos. And Oreo is still using both the old and new logos, side by side. Two logos with a 10+ dE00 color difference, a color difference that would lead to a rejected print job, “because it would hurt sales”.
I checked the investor relations reports from Mondelez, the parent company of Oreo. There is no indication that there was a decline in sales. There are no discussions to be found on social media about this difference – and please note that these days, people will immediately start furious posts about even the most futile things.
Even more interesting, is the use of the Oreo logo on the different websites: the EU website shows the new logo, the US website the old one. On the Brazil website, you will first see a package with the new logo, scrolling down to the second package, you will notice it’s the old logo.
Nobody seems to notice, or nobody seems to care…
And that’s why we need a new metric: the ‘Smallest Actionable Difference’. What’s the smallest color difference that will turn off consumers and will stop them from buying a product? This is very different from the two metrics from which current print requirements are derived: the Just Noticeable Difference (can you see a difference) and the Just Acceptable Difference (if you see a difference, do you consider this acceptable or not). Plus: both JND and JAD were derived from lab experiments, with samples in a clean, flat field (not the cluttered shopping environment where the third dimension can play an important role: a box that is twisted a little bit, will change the color perception). And with participants being asked to carefully look at the samples, while during shopping, we grab the package that is sufficiently close to the mental image we have of the product.
To conclude: for FMCG packaging, that 2 dE00, or even 4 or 5 dE00, will not hurt your sales. It’s the product quality that matters the most. The packaging is needed to transport and protect the product, and to be able to recognize it in a split second.
For a more in-depth version, please check this article on insights4print.ceo!
PS: check out this recent picture of the new Coca-Cola packaging. Do you really think someone who loves Coca-Cola would not buy it because the shrink wrap features a slightly different red? And if you do think it would make a difference: which one is the right one? Think abou that…
