The Problem with Category Cues

This is what your brand is doing when it plays by the same category cues as every other brand…

Premium = Black & Gold
Cereals = Yellow, Orange, Red
Oral Care = White
Feminine Care = Pink
Menopause Care = Purple

There’s a difference between using colour to guide a consumer through range, flavour and experience navigation – and just reaching for the same clichéd category cues as everyone else.

The sentiment can often be “our brand feels right for the category and like it has always existed” – perhaps it does, but perhaps it feels like it has always existed because it has borrowed every clichéd category cue from the last 200 years, and the result is an amalgamation of every brand on shelf and every brand which has ever existed.

Daniel Hinde

Daniel Hinde is the Founder & Creative Director of Greatergood® Brands – a London-based branding and packaging design agency specialising in FMCG & CPG consumer brands.

With over 20 years of commercial experience building brands for global household names and hundreds of disruptive challenger brands – Daniel leads Greatergood's strategic and creative output across brand strategy, brand design, packaging design and retail strategy.

His work spans food and drink, health and wellness, supplements and everyday consumer goods – from early-stage startups preparing for their first retail listing to established brands repositioning for growth.