Grown Up Chocolate Company Identity: Target Audience

Women

Chocolate is hands down the number one food women crave.

A Crave-Inducing Combination
The ingredients in chocolate create a powerful blend. "The combination gives you that overall optimum brain happiness," Dr. Mitchell says. 

Theobromine: A caffeine-like stimulant that perks you up.

Tryptophane: Increases the brain's serotonin levels for a happy, feel-good result.

Phenethylamine: Releases endorphins, causing feelings of passion and love.

Sugar and fat: The unbeatable duo that gives chocolate its delectable creamy texture.

The Health Benefits
Cacao contains flavonoids, the antioxidant found in chocolate and red wine. Emerging research claims that flavonoids in dark chocolate can increase blood flow, which could help reduce high blood pressure. "As a general rule, the higher percentage of cacao equals a higher percentage of flavonoids," Dr. Mitchell says.
Have Your Dark Chocolate Cake and Eat It Too
Dark chocolate may not be fat-free, but Dr. Mitchell says that if it's what you crave, enjoy it. "I've given myself permission to pamper without guilt," she says. "Chocolate should be something to look forward to and enjoy. We beat ourselves up enough every day."

In this age, where advertising is more about the lifestyle than the product itself, advertisers are targeting this niche market of women who buy into the lifestyle of skinny as sexy.

So here’s a controversial thought: rather than try to anticipate what all women might want, how about we try to create good design that will appeal to both genders? The Della experience should, if nothing else, teach us that women neither need nor want a bespoke website. We could look instead to brands like Apple, which create female-friendly products (and sites and apps) and conclude that maybe good design simply appeals to men and women alike.

Did you know a woman dedicates only 2.6 seconds to her product selection? Branding designed for women needs a feminine appeal, since women’s focus strategies vary significantly from men’s. While men tend to be single-minded and focused on a task, women multi-taskand are more attentive to details.


Color and image

Packaging design for women goes far beyond making the product a shade of pink.  Surprisingly, pink is low on the spectrum of packaging color preferences. Women like blue the best, with red a close second, according to Packaging Digest. Surveys show that pictures of celebrities on a package do not particularly attract female buyers.

Shape

Women prefer packaging with an appealing shape, visual characteristics, functionality, and an easiness in handling, storage, opening and closing. Functionality and ease of use make a product female-friendly. A visually-appealing shape is desirable, but how a product opens and closes or the level of control of the dispenser is also a key factor in preference.

Text

Keep it simple: remove 50 percent of the words from your marketing message and transpose the rest to a visual. Women love to talk, so let them do the talking, not your package! All lettering on a package should be large and easy to read. In essence, it should scream the benefits of the product inside.  Keep away from technical driven statements on the benefits. A woman doesn’t really care how the product works as long as it works effectively and continuously.

Boxes of chocolate designed for women

Most women have a love-hate relationship with chocolate. Designing a chocolate packaging tailored to women, can be a challenging task! Most chocolate packagings play on the emotional side, while the product comes second. Check out these few examples of chocolate boxes with a feminine touch

Appealing to women as mothers in advertisements varied by product: the image of women as mothers in cacao advertisements changed into wives who get their husband to buy chocolate for them in chocolate advertisements. The Rowntree chocolate advertisement below portrays a woman receiving boxed chocolate from her husband who is eager to see her reaction. Similar to the advertisement above, women are shown in the context of a family and not primarily as individual consumers.

Health Motivated People

Highlights

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A ‘healthy’ package appearance can inspire a ‘healthy’ product experience.
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The effect of package appearance on taste evaluation is highly context-dependent.
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Packaging appearance has little impact on taste evaluation in ‘green’ supermarkets.
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Shoppers at green supermarkets are less easily persuaded by packaging design.

Highlights

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Colors and typefaces differ in weight perception.

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‘Light’ and ‘heavy’ typeface and color function as a product’s healthiness cue.

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The effect of typeface weight is dependent on a consumer’s health regulatory focus.

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Individuals aiming at good health are susceptible to subtle health indicators.

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Explicit effects were corroborated using an implicit measure (IAT).

Packaging sustainability positively influences perceptions of food product quality.
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Product sustainability moderates the positive effect of packaging sustainability.
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Product naturalness explains the perceptions of product quality.

Nostalgia in Adults

Things adults miss from their childhood, include these on the packaging as illustations or more abstract designs.  

Nostalgia makes us crave the past. It is a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former time or place, whether it’s for a living memory or experience, for another country, for family and friends, or for era that is perceived as being a simpler time.

Used in design, nostalgia can appeal to the audience on a sentimental and emotive level. No matter how much technology advances and the modern world progresses, nostalgia—the notion of longing—remains an essential human condition. Here’s how to harness the psychological and emotive power of nostalgia in your design.

Nostalgia and Creativity

Research has found that nostalgia can heighten creativity. 

Reinvent childhood memories, Bring back the days of summer, Flashback to simpler times, Celebrate the holidays, Contrast then and now, Create a feel good character, create a look that feels local, dig out historic photographs, Mix vintage fonts, colour it sepia, highight heritage, mid century colour palette, keep it simple, use retro style, make it familar, go old school, merge two disparate ideas. 

As nostalgia evokes a warm and fuzzy feeling it can be used as a sentimental appeal to your audience. Identify how your brand can connect to an aspect of the past and reinterpret your memories or the collective imagination in an abstract way. However, be sure to know your target audience because different generations have different associations and experiences, and to use it in appropriate situations for best effect.