this is potentially a really fat post but it's not about the food, guys. it's about the packaging. Food Network celebrity Giada De Laurentiis is all about keeping everything she cooks looking beautiful. The look of her show is filmed in a very airy, simple, clean and pretty way. Everything she makes is always presented in an attractive way. She is a lovely lady, always dolled up in feminine Anthropologie outfits (fun fact: her husband works/designs for them!), smiling and making everything look so easy.
So, naturally, as if Target wasnt pefect enough, they put Giada on board for a line of cooking products. I spotted it the other day while going up and down aisles and was so drawn to the packaging of her products. The beautiful colors, the simple labels, etc. I just wanted to buy it all due to the fact that it was merchandised in such an attractive way. It made me want to go home, open every window in my house, put on beautiful music on my Itunes and cook some sort of a healthy meal. This, of course didn't happen. It made me want to though, which is a good marketing technique. Plus, if I had the cash like their target demographic (there I go, using those big Intro To Marketing words. look at me!) probably has, I would have spent it. Spaghetti sauce with a beautiful chartreuse and blue colored label finished off with pretty typography? Give me it! Oh, it's $10? And I can buy the same thing at Publix for $2.95? Oh, Target! You got me again! (I didn't buy it, obviously.)
That's the silly science of merchandising that I am almost in love with. The idea of packaging something so basic like tomato sauce, that probably comes from the same factory that the generic grocery store brand does, but if you throw in a fancy shmancy label and market it as "living your life beautiful and simple", it winds up being a whole other game. I love it! Tricking society! Greed and power! Just kidding. But seriously, it's interesting. Taking something regular, sprucing it up by the way it is sold to give the customer this idea that they are buying something so fabulous when in reality, it is just regular. So many people fall for it! And if they think they aren't falling for it, they are. This is true because everyone at some point, saves up the money they work for, to purchase something at some point that is also in fact being merchandised in a way to present it being better than it actually is.
I feel that Target is the King of this idea. They are geniuses at it. (at a regular, everyday store scale. Don't get me started on high-end brands. They are in a whole other realm of trickery) Thank God for it though. If you're going to buy something at a cheap price, it might as well look like it's fancier than it is. Would you buy milk/orange juice that looked like this or this? Oh, what's that? You don't give a shit what your milk looks like? Then you can just simply get the fuck out of here.
