By Vanessa Doll
Variety packs are supposed to make choosing easier. In pet food, they can do the opposite.
One pack might need to communicate the brand, sub-brand, form, flavor, ingredients, benefits, count, and several different varieties, all competing for the same small piece of real estate. That’s a lot to ask a package to say without making it look like it has a lot to say.
The design challenge is finding the hierarchy. What needs to be understood first? What can wait? And what can go away entirely?
A good variety pack doesn’t just fit more information on shelf. It helps shoppers make sense of the information that actually matters, quickly, while still looking and feeling like the brand.
1. Keep the brand prominent
The brand should remain the strongest visual cue on a variety pack. With limited space, it’s tempting to minimize brand identity to make room for flavors, counts, or product benefits. However, variety packs already communicate value, so trust and quality are essential to balance the perception of lower costs.
Leading with the brand on any CPG product, particularly pet food, communicates trust and quality at the point of purchase. Prioritize the brand first, then move lesser-priority communication to the back or remove it altogether rather than minimizing your identity.
2. Use holding shapes and color to organize variety
Holding shapes and color are powerful navigation tools for variety packs. They can communicate flavor, separate counts and forms, and add personality when the brand allows for it.
In my former life working on P&G brands, I had a serious love-hate relationship with holding shapes and violators. However, regarding variety packs, it is a universal CPG truth that color and shapes are your friends. If there isn’t room for additional messaging, deliberate shapes can add emotion while still helping shoppers quickly understand what changes from one variety to another.
3. Stack counts and numbers clearly
Clear number hierarchy helps shoppers understand the value and structure of a variety pack quickly. Brands that don’t use a holding shape often rely on a heavy stroke or outline to communicate individual counts or numbers, but this can create unnecessary visual competition with flavor colors and other category cues.
Yellow is a common category cue for value, but it can vibrate against brown, red, or pink — all typical flavor colors in pet food. Making the mathematical equation overt is often more effective. Stacking the numbers is a tidier way to communicate value, and it quickly showcases what is different within the variety pack.
4. Use product imagery to differentiate flavors
Product imagery can help variety packs communicate flavor and product differences when the available space allows for it. The larger structure of a variety pack typically provides more room for imagery, but there are still challenges. Pates, purees, and kibble don’t always look different to the naked eye despite ingredient distinctions. And even when they do look different, does it look good?
As long as the imagery is distinct and separated enough, lean into the primary raw ingredients to differentiate flavors. Ingredient imagery can make differences more intuitive while adding appetite appeal and visual interest to the pack.
You can also showcase the product in its package form, such as an image of a pouch. It doesn’t have the added benefit of taste appeal, but it clearly indicates multiple items. If the distinction between renders is unclear, pump up a feature — while checking regulatory guidelines — and add contrasting colors or holding shapes to make the differences easier to navigate.
(Bonus) 5. Communicate usage and occasion when space allows
Usage and occasion can make variety packs more intuitive when there is enough space to communicate them without clutter. This approach works best when the design still has room for calm space or when a package window can help do some of the work.
Usage and occasion are engaging ways to show consumers how varieties fit into different moments. For example, Cesar has “meals” for breakfast and dinner, allowing the pack to show six “breakfast” items and six “dinner” items to indicate that they differ. Free idea here! A treat multipack with “play time, down time, snack time” could uniquely show distinct usage occasions while adding personality.
Designing variety packs for easy navigation
A well-designed variety pack makes the differences between products easy to understand without making the package feel crowded. Keep the brand prominent, use shapes and colors to organize varieties, stack numbers clearly, use imagery to showcase flavor differences, and communicate usage occasions when space allows.
Above all, keep the design as navigable as possible. Consumers should be able to understand what the variety pack contains, how the products differ, and why they should choose it — ideally within a few seconds of seeing it on shelf.
Interested in more information specific to pet food cpg branding? Check out this article on brand loyalty.
Vanessa is Partner & Director of Relationships at Freshmade. From bar owner to account lead, strategist to agency owner, she’s spent years in the trenches with leading CPG brands modernizing and optimizing their positioning to maximize growth.
Freshmade is a CPG Branding and Strategy Design agency focusing on food branding and package label design. We design for digital, from campaigns to websites, and have an in-house photography studio. Our goal is to accelerate growth for our clients through mouthwatering, thoughtful brand building and design. Notable clients we have designed CPG packaging for include Bolthouse Fresh, Evolution Fresh, Hartz, Publix, Mastronardi (Sunset), Annie Chun’s, Factor, and many more
