Package Design | packagedesignmag.com

(September 2009) posted on Tue Oct 13, 2009

By Michael Bensinger-Colton

• 
• 
• 
• 

 
To most, shopping the aisles of a grocery store might seem like a rather humdrum experience—carried out in haste in order to restock the fridge and the pantry. An odd few, like myself, go to the store not to shop but to observe behaviors on the shelf. No, I am not that oddball going back to the sample table five times—not usually. I prefer to refer to myself as something of a "brand-thropologist". And to me, the behavior of the products on the shelf appear to be quite a spectacle.

In part one of this article, I referred to the aisles of the store as the Supermarket Serengeti—a lush habitat of species, each with a distinct look and almost animated with personality as if they were attempting to upstage neighboring brands as they themselves carry on for the consumer. Besides being crafty in their cunning, they are richly fertile, reproducing (off the manufacturing line) like busy bunnies.

Their fitness within an unforgiving, constantly evolving wilderness is always under the scrutiny of marketers—MBAs tasked with playing the part of omniscient seers who view trends in sales volumes as predictors of market viability. When surprisingly new product line extensions from brands we know and love hit the shelf, it's an indicator that the future looks bright. Perhaps the brand was truly ready to parent—resourceful enough to endow its equity towards nurturing and protecting its spitting image.

The sharp-witted, trained observer might aptly question what appears to be an odd and misappropriated fetish about animal behavior. The obvious question is, how can the survival of the fittest brand depend squarely upon the conditions in the store? What of the forces imparted from the outside, such as the demands of the consumer and of economic considerations about pricing?