Box Vox

packaging as content

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August 30, 2012

Price Tag Branding

Revisiting the idea of trompe l’oeil price tags on packaging, we have this “AD Inorgosa” insecticide packaging from 1966. (from EveryDayLifeModern’s Flickr Photostream)

Apparently designed by Luis Duran, it uses one type of packaging (a hang tag) as a graphic design element on other types of package (cans, bottles, etc.) Using a faux price tag in the the design of a logo or a package, is a way of signaling commerce—that the item is “for sale.”

Nowadays, that company that has bought into this idea in a big way is Best Buy. They have not only trademarked the shape of a hang-tag style price tag…

…they are also known to aggressively oppose other companies that attempt to trademark logos that feature price tags and have successfully prevented some of the logos below from getting approved.

Of course, AD Inorgosa’s 1966 packaging shows that Best Buy was not the first company to use a price tag in their branding. Another example is the Ferry-Morse Seed Company’s “Advanced Gold Tag” trademark, filed in 1964 and approved in 1972. Like Best Buy, their signs were also yellow.

One interesting thing about hang tags as packaging, is that they are labels, rather than containers. Although, one of Best Buy’s other trademarks envisions a price tag shaped box…

(Price tag as container, after the fold…)

 

 

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