researchers developed pseudo-scientific devices for testing an average
consumer’s ability to recognize packages at certain distances, identify and
distinguish logos, and retain various visual impressions of a product’s identity.
One such invention was a shadow box that opened and closed at incremental
speeds to test the time needed to hook a customer with a particular product
image. Since this required considerable time and money, it was obvious to
less enterprising companies that the cheaper route was to simply copy CCA’s
research rather than invest in its own. Widespread genre code mimicry
started with the rationale that spending money on research and development
was unnecessary when their product was already a knock-off, and those same
dollars would be better spent promoting the brand instead.
Inventing a brand mythology is essential to the success of any
product, which means a knock-off could easily be touted as an original
through an effective ad campaign. Whether, for example, Tostitos, Chipitos,
or Nachos* lead the current salsa chip marketing bonanza is really
unimportant. Whoever and whichever company initially designed the
colorful Mexican rectilinear motifs and stereotypical cha-cha-like lettering
imprinted on the originator’s bags probably understood that every other
product in the genre would ultimately adopt the same look. Customers might
ask for a brand by name, but are easily duped into buying whatever looks
similar and familiar. Redundant design is a strategy that enables rivals to
trespass on another’s market share. Although promotion blitzes emphasize
unique qualities of each chip, using common graphic characteristics on
packages doubtless confuses most consumers at the point of sale.
Confusion is, therefore, one of the strategies for capturing buyers’
hearts and minds.
Take another classic example: At most supermarket checkout
counters, buyers are confronted with the confluence of gothic headlines in
colored boxes and overprinting photographs of celebrities. The tabloid
weeklies—theStar,theGlobe,theExaminer,and National Enquirer—come
off as a congealed blob of typefaces and imagery, and even their mastheads
are ostensibly the same—set in gothic faces, either as white dropped out of
red or red on white. Each periodical is also bathed in yellow, which on
newsprint apparently has the same allure for Homo sapiens as bananas for
monkeys. This sameness rests on the idea that while waiting on a
supermarket line, customers in a weakened state don’t really care which one
or how many of these periodicals they buy—one is as good as the next and
all are better than one.
*Actually, it was probably Fritos. Remember, the currently defunct Frito Bandito gave the corn
chip the allure of Mexico.