Lürzer’s Archive Special Report
FOOD+ DRINK23 23 Can we escape red and yellow?
STANLEYSPOST.COM
@STANLEYS_POST
FOOD + DRINK SPECIAL
For our second survey of trends and tastes in Food+Drink communication, we have focused on color.
The spectrum of taste
We invited a diverse group of creatives, all of whom have expertise in advertising food and drink, to reflect on the role of color in the field and to speculate on trends that might be affecting it. This is an area of specialism that combines strong traditions and restrictions with, also, vibrant and sometimes provocative short-term trends. For example, who now believes in “digital lavender” as a must-have in making food and drink attractive? Some industry pundits put their names behind that still largely invisible hue as a hot choice for 2023 … but it seems to have passed us by. However, none of our experts put their reputation there, we hasten to add. Instead, we will be feeding you a wide range of insightful and speculative observations while juxtaposing them with the hard evidence of the more outstanding food and drink ads of recent years drawn from Lürzer’s Archive. We suspect trend forecasting has a stronger, and a more scientifically-based, part to play around food and drink than in many sectors. There are clearly some very consistent values – all that red and yellow used around fast food, for example, which our experts will touch on in various ways over the coming pages. And yet there is also endless space for delightful innovation where almost any color can find its way, depending on the content and creativity around the brand and its underlying product truth.
Image: Sancho BBDO, Bogotá, L[A] 5/2019, full ad on page 174.
It is clear the rules are for bending and sometimes breaking … but understand the game before you do.
Vol 4/2023
142–143
Laura Petruccelli Co-Founder / Chief Creative Officer nice&frank, San Francisco 1
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Color can’t be observed as a stand-alone element when it comes to bringing food to life now that we mostly consume it through screens. You just have to look at the insane increase in TikTok trends around food and drinks to see that it’s the magical combination of color, sound, texture, and movement that gives personality to the way food shows up in people’s lives. There are 13 billion ASMR styled ‘oddly satisfying’ videos uploaded online right now. This tells us we have to think of color as part of a collection of things that make something appealing or engaging enough for people to care. Especially since most of the F&B brands that see success do so when they hand over the tools for people to create their own content.
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1 L[A] 2/2022, Ogilvy & Mather, Chicago 2 L[A] 2/2022, BETC Etoile Rouge, Paris 3 L[A] 2/2022, MetaDesign, Sydney 4 L[A] 2/2022, GUT, Miami 5 L[A] 2/2022, Leo Burnett, London 6 L[A] 3/2022, Brainsonic, Paris 7 L[A] 2/2015, Fluid, Bountiful, Utah 8 L[A] 1/2022, TBWA, Paris
Lürzer’s Archive
The issue the work originally appeared in is noted. More information and full credits at luerzersarchive.com
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Vol 4/2023
144–145
Effie Kacopieros Creative Director Innocean, Sydney, Australia
The corner store is one of my most vivid childhood memories. Shelves of packaging towered over me, all vying for my attention with their vibrant colours and designs. The milk fridge did the same: bubblegum pink or strawberry? Or my favorite: iced coffee. Somehow, that muddy brown carton was never as convincing as the pastel pink, despite what was inside. Colors have the power to do more than just evoke emotion & feelings – they elicit actions. They can completely influence our choices in the supermarket aisle or restaurant.
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1 L[A] 1/2023, LOLA MullenLowe, Madrid 2 L[A] 3/2023, Athos Bolivia, Santa Cruz de la Sierra 3 L[A] 1/2022, Johannes Leonardo, New York 4 L[A] 2/2023, Meaning, Kobe, Japan 5 L[A] 1/2023, Creamos, Medellín, Colombia 6 L[A] 3+4/2021, The WHOLE Advertising, Shanghai
Lürzer’s Archive
The issue the work originally appeared in is noted. More information and full credits at luerzersarchive.com
FOOD + DRINK SPECIAL
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We eat with our eyes first. Always. Fresh green limes, crispy golden crusts and dewy indigo blueberries will always have more appeal than a beige chicken breast. It’s bland and unexciting. And nobody wants to eat beige food – with their eyes or their stomachs. This is something art directors and retouchers alike have known and utilized since day one. And today, we have another trick up our sleeves to sway palates with palettes: AI. Gone are the days of needing food stylists to ice-freeze veggies to lock in their crisp color. We now have a whole suite of tools to create mouth-watering images in an instant. But that doesn’t mean human creative craft is off the table. Because while machines may be able to learn and execute using color theory, they can’t be taught taste. And that’s the secret ingredient.
Vol 4/2023
156–157