Packaging does have designs on consumer choice

Their approach shows the holes in the argument for research as clearly as a shot through the foot.

The packaging of a product is the realm of specialist conceptualisers, branding practitioners and package designers, not hapless consumers. How much will ACNielsen have to pay their target groups to come and fiddle around with this obviously already costly software? And is it not patently obvious that showing potential consumers a range of colours and shapes is a bit like giving enough monkeys enough typewriters in the quest for desirable products and brands. How many options will they end up with?

Why should the consumers' opinion be any more effective than a packaging and branding specialist and would one not need to produce a "costly" mock up at some point anyway?

The fact that their software facility claims to provide "quick and reliable" packaging solutions, could even be construed as a fraudulent claim, which will give neither brand owners nor their customers any meaningful value in the long term.

A sound packaging strategy emerges not from a software package with colour and form chosen on a whim of a research candidate, but from a thorough understanding of local and international trends, an understanding of how to graphically communicate the intrinsic properties and benefits of the contents on pack and how all the on pack icons and elements enhance and add value to the brand.

Most importantly, the fact that the pack can be viewed in 3D on a computer screen in isolation, bears no relation to how the product is experienced up against competitors in the retail environment.

A client's approach to package design and brand building should be holistic and multi-faceted, undertaken by someone with insight into branding and consumer behaviour and where the whole should add up to much, much more than the sum of size + shape + colour.