Do You See Voices?
What your packaging communicates before anyone reads a word — and why it matters more than ever.
Let’s face it — we judge books by their covers. Contrary to what our parents tried to teach us, we form first impressions in the time it takes to blink. It’s human nature to meet someone for the first time and form an unshakable opinion before any words are exchanged.
A study conducted in 1973 proved that 93% of all communication is non-verbal. Not what we say, but how we say it. Think about how much information you read from a person before they speak — their body language, eye contact, facial expressions, clothing, how they carry themselves. Their visual voice. We subconsciously decode non-verbal signals every day and most of us aren’t even aware of it.
Now consider your brand’s packaging.
What is it communicating to shoppers in the blink of an eye? Is it telling the visual story of your brand’s promise? Is it softly whispering or obnoxiously shouting? Is it communicating premium — or generic? Warmth — or corporate distance? What are the visual voices of your competition saying, and how does yours compare on shelf?
What designers have known intuitively for decades, CPG leaders are increasingly having to reckon with: visual communication is the single most powerful form of communication your brand has. And right now, two forces are making this more urgent than ever.
1. The Abundance Problem
We live in a culture of extraordinary abundance. More SKUs. More channels. More brands entering your category every quarter. Private label at every price point. DTC brands bypassing retail entirely, then showing up in Target six months later.
In this environment, functional excellence is table stakes. Having a great product is necessary, but no longer sufficient. As Daniel Pink observed in A Whole New Mind, it’s no longer enough to create a product that’s merely functional — today it’s economically crucial to create something that is also beautiful, resonant, or emotionally engaging.
For CPG leaders in food, beverage, and modern wellness, this means the brand that wins isn’t always the one with the best product. It’s often the one with the most compelling visual voice.
2. The Information Overload Reality
Consumers are overwhelmed. Information is coming from every direction — financial news, health alerts, social feeds, email, notifications, the news cycle. By some estimates, we’re now exposed to upward of 10,000 brand impressions per day.
None of this gets easier on shelf. The average grocery store stocks 30,000 to 50,000 SKUs. Your shopper is moving fast, scanning quickly, making micro-decisions they’re barely conscious of. In that environment, your packaging has one job: communicate instantly.
Not eventually. Not after they pick it up and read the back panel. Instantly.
What Visual Voice Looks Like in Practice
When Stevita Naturals engaged Cavehaus for what became a seven-year brand evolution, the packaging wasn’t broken in any obvious way. But the visual voice wasn’t communicating what made Stevita genuinely different — a pioneering stevia brand with deep roots in fair trade and sustainability.
The diagnostic work revealed a gap between what the brand stood for and what the packaging was saying. The visual voice needed to communicate natural, premium, trusted, and clean — clearly and confidently — in a category crowded with brands making similar claims but communicating them inconsistently.
The result was a systematic evolution — not a radical reinvention — that unified 9 product families under a consistent visual system anchored by a single iconic hummingbird mark. Sales increased across all categories. And Hum Gum, one product in the family, scaled from regional distribution to Walmart nationwide.
The visual voice hadn’t been shouting. It just hadn’t been saying the right things. Once it did, the market responded.
Three Questions to Audit Your Visual Voice
Before any transformation work begins at Cavehaus, we ask these three diagnostic questions:
Does your packaging communicate your brand promise at a glance? Not the full story — the essential promise. If a shopper can’t read it in two seconds, it isn’t being communicated.
Does your visual voice contrast with your category — strategically? The goal isn’t to be the loudest or the most disruptive. It’s to stand out within the context of what makes your brand credible and relevant to your target shopper.
Has your business evolved faster than your packaging? This is more common than most leaders recognize. The brand has grown, the positioning has sharpened, the product has improved — but the packaging still reflects who you were two years ago.
The Visual Voice Imperative
In a culture of abundance and information overload, your brand’s visual voice isn’t a design decision. It’s a strategic one. The brands winning on shelf — and building the kind of consumer relationships that compound over time — are the ones who’ve made that choice deliberately.
Not accidentally. Not by committee. Not by following category conventions because everyone else does.
By deciding what they want their brand to say — and engineering the visual voice to say it.
Is Your Visual Voice Telling the Right Story?
If your brand is raising the bar in food, beverage, or modern wellness but your packaging isn’t reflecting that leadership, it starts with a diagnostic conversation.
At Cavehaus, we begin every engagement with a Clarity assessment — a structured diagnostic that audits your visual voice against your category, your competitive set, and your brand’s actual promise. From there, we determine whether your brand needs Evolution (a systematic refresh) or Rebuild (a complete transformation).
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About the Author
Matthew Cave is the Founder and Creative Director of Cavehaus, a brand transformation consultancy for CPG leaders in food, beverage, and modern wellness. He is The Brand Mechanic — he doesn’t guess. He diagnoses.