as consumers demand greater transparency from cpg brands, brand owners are blazing new trails with refreshingly honest and real onpack messaging&mdasheven for &lsquodelicate&rsquo products.by rick barrack, contributing editorhave you noticed that brands have been &ldquogetting real&rdquo lately i&rsquom talking about refreshingly honest, nobs messaging in ad campaigns and on packaging that tells it exactly like it is. this trend is not surprising. in today&rsquos challenging market, honesty is a surefire way to establish reliability and connect with consumers. in fact, according to an october 2014 study on authentic brandsby global public relations firm cohn & wolfe, the numberone quality or behavior that people demand of big brands is that they communicate honestly about their products and services. with information about a brand in real time readily available, consumers are now investigative reporters, and companies can&rsquot risk having the public discover that something about their brand is dishonest.we&rsquore seeing this trend transcend categories. under armour&rsquos &ldquoi will what i want&rdquo campaign, in which misty copeland proves that not all prima ballerinas are stick figures, and sir richard&rsquos condoms&rsquo ads, with copy lines like, &ldquolet&rsquos change positions, not diapers,&rdquo are blazing new trails with their honesty and humor. forget about &ldquobeating around the bush,&rdquo to quote hello flo, a brand that mails out care packages for women&rsquos and girls&rsquo feminine protection needs. this is straight talk, pure and simple.the movement toward transparency means that consumers are attaching themselves to companies that operate with honesty and integrity, rather than aligning with brands that try to pull the wool over their eyes. and while this kind of transparency first gained traction in advertising, it is now carrying over to packaging design. companies are using this frank style of language and graphics to stand out on shelf.three recent examples of brands that are &ldquogetting real&rdquo through frankness and intelligence on their packaging are cocacola life, which touts its use of &ldquoreal ingredients,&rdquo dollar shave club, which uses &ldquoreal talk,&rdquo and the first years, which showcases &ldquoreal people.&rdquoreal ingredientswhen the biggest beverage company in the world starts getting honest, you&rsquore damn straight people are going to sit up and take notice. and that&rsquos what happened when cocacoca life launched in south america in 2013 and made its u.s. debut in the fall of 2014. cocacola life, which is coke&rsquos &ldquonatural&rdquo answer to the outcry against processed ingredients like highfructose corn syrup and aspartame, was created to combat the era of the soda backlash. coke had to do something to save falling sales and maintain category relevancy.cocacola life&rsquos packaging is the epitome of transparency, with a green color that is a dramatic departure from its iconic red and immediately conveys that it is something new and different for the brand&mdashsomething natural or should we say, more natural. an approachable script font is used for the word &ldquolife,&rdquo and an icon that closely resembles a leaf draws your eye to the fact that this soda is &ldquosweetened with cane sugar and stevia.&rdquococacola life also claims to be a &ldquoreduced calorie soda&rdquo that has &ldquo35 less calories than cocacola&rdquo albeit with an asterisk next to that line. whether or not the product actually is better for you than other sodas has yet to be seen, but in this case, the departure from the brand equities communicates a desire to move away from consumer expectations of the brand and offer them something more real.real talkwhile cocacola life is an example of an established brand trying to regain market share through honesty, a newer circa 2011 brand, dollar shave club, is using a nobs messaging strategy to build its online subscription business and procure customers. the tag line sums up the brand&rsquos mission best &ldquoshave time. shave money.&rdquousing clever, tongueincheek language, the brand gets right to the point dollar shave club is a simple and easy way to avoid the cost and hassles of traditional shaving brands. who wants to engage with the drugstore attendant every time they need a new razor the brand&rsquos message is conveyed everywhere you look. in fact, the words &ldquosimple&rdquo and &ldquoeasy&rdquo are splashed across all of the brand&rsquos touch points. even backpanel copy on packaging is used to &ldquoget real.&rdquo one moisturizer says it is &ldquothe ultimate fix for the disruptive exercise of shaving,&rdquo while the blade packaging features an onbrand, though fictitious quote, &ldquoi like shaving with a dull razor&rdquo and then credits it to &ldquono one ever.&rdquoand when it comes to real talk, who can deny the honesty of dollar shave club&rsquos one wipe charlies&mdashcertainly the only product on the market dubbed &ldquobuttwipes made for men.&rdquo if the statement, &ldquothe civilized way to wipe&rdquo isn&rsquot transparent enough for you, well then, i don&rsquot know what is.real peoplesince we&rsquore on the topic of wipes, the first years&mdasha brand of infant and toddler products such as potty training seats, dishware, and health and grooming items that has been trusted by mothers since the 1950s&mdashrecently rebranded itself with younger moms in mind. anyone who has kids can tell you that new motherhood does not consist of a pictureperfect baby being fed rice cereal while politely cooing at an immaculate table. more often it&rsquos a pretty dirty job. and no consumer group wants to hear the plain truth about that more than millennials.millennials are looking for a real conversation about parenting, warts and all, with onpoint information so that they can make informed choices. this isn&rsquot the end of an era for them like previous generations felt it&rsquos a new beginning. the first years gets them excited about this new phase by cutting through the baby poop and telling it like it is, as shown through the &ldquoreal photography&rdquo used on the packaging.gone is the boomer fantasy of old&mdashwith angelic babies and perfect parents blissing out in lala land the first years uses casual, often funny, selfiestyle photography that a parent might post on instagram or facebook showing all the imperfections of new parenthood. by being supportive, friendly, and above all, honest, the first years forges a relationship with consumers that will continue as their children grow.transparency begets loyaltythese brands are telling it like it is for one reason because transparency begets loyalty, plain and simple. of course, if you are claiming to be real, you better make sure that you&rsquore really being real.in recent years, a few brands have learned that the hard way and watched the public turn on them as a result of their dishonesty. in 2011, a public interest group sued cocacola for marketing its vitaminwater brand as a healthy beverage. but the brand&rsquos response to that action was even more surprising it defended itself by saying that &ldquono consumer could reasonably be misled into thinking vitaminwater was a healthy beverage.&rdquo which led consumers to ask, &ldquohow could cocacola put the word &lsquovitamin&rsquo in a product name and not think that people would assume it had some health benefits&rdquo that the brand belittled its consumers, rather than simply apologizing, was insulting and was reason enough for consumers to question the brand.johnson & johnson&mdashwhose legendary credo states that its &ldquofirst duty is to the doctors, nurses and patients, to mothers and fathers and all others who use our products and services&rdquo&mdashlost the trust of those individuals when it pulled 22 products, totaling 300 million bottles, off its shelves beginning in 2009. but the worst part was that johnson & johnson didn&rsquot even offer its consumers so much as an explanation as to why they did this. were the products tampered with were there quality control problems at their factories zilch. not a peep. and then one day the product returned to shelves&mdashafter j&j had lost 900 million in sales. did consumers return to shelves as well only time will tell.twenty, or even 10, years ago, consumers may not have held a johnson & johnson or a vitaminwater accountable for trying to dupe them. but today, there&rsquos no getting around the fact that transparency is the only real way to win the trust of the people giving you their dollars. whether you&rsquore speaking to healthconscious soda drinkers, fashionconscious men, or millennial moms, there&rsquos no question that getting real is a winwin situation for today&rsquos brands.rick barrack is cofounder and chief creative officer at brand agency cbx. 
