50 Of The Most Evil Packaging Designs That Were Created To Deceive People (New Pics)
God is in the details, they say. But so is the devil. Especially when you’re hungry and drained after yet another bender day in this wild, wild world. And though jerk packaging designs do not apply solely to food, but come in many shapes and product categories, they are the solid reason why so many of us have some level of trust issues.
Like, putting three salami tranches on the side of a pizza so that it gets a “window view,” shining like a diamond out of the package, is borderline bearable. We bear this injustice only because we know it can get worse. Like a wrap packaged in such a way that it looks ⅓ bigger than it truly is.
So Bored Panda has compiled this list as a safe place to talk about shamelessly evil packaging designs that have been spotted all over the world. And even if the phenomenon is more or less universal, it doesn’t mean it’s okay. On the contrary, it serves as a reminder that it can always get worse than your chocolate box with 50% of the candy discreetly concealed from the packaging because it doesn’t exist.
Psst! More infuriating packages that boil even the most Zen blood of all can be found in our previous articles here and here.
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1001 Stickers And 768 Of Them Are Useless Squares. Thanks, Disney
Is Anyone Else Bothered By Deceptive Packaging Like This?
Bored Panda reached out to Portugal-based graphic designer Laura Vanagaite who specializes in branding and illustration design. Laura said that deceptive packaging like the ones you see in this post is really a way to trick the human mind.
“Once we see unique photos of food and drinks, our mind creates the impression that the volume of the contents is greater than it actually is.” This anticipation is destroyed as soon as you open the package. “And once we find out that the reality is different, we feel the disappointment,” Laura explained.
When asked why there is still so much deceptive packaging sold in the shopping aisles, Laura said that this is a clever marketing technique. “Brands know that beautiful imagery sells and that catchy photos with great products create the illusion which will help to sell it fast.”
Bought These Sticky Notes Cause I Thought The Gold Border Was Nice
My Sister Got This For Her Birthday
The Sticker Was A Lie
However, the alluring impression of the deceptive packaging is temporary. Laura says that in order to establish a bond with your loyal customers, brands should employ functional and trustworthy designs. It’s what allows them “to create a feeling of security between them and their customer.”
When it comes to the right kind of packaging design, Laura explained “that all areas of design have a purpose to solve a problem and provide trust to the user.” This means that user-friendly packaging should have features like safety and enhanced usability, be appealing and optimal, and fit the specific customer requirements.
“Every good design needs to be functional, practical, and represent the brand itself in a good way.” But that doesn’t mean it should be boring, on the contrary. In addition to all the features mentioned before, efficient packaging has to grab the consumer’s attention.
This is where the product and packaging designers come into play. “The designer has the ability to make the design stand out by using shapes, colors, orientations. These are key in making it clear to the consumer what the brand is about and what its purpose is."
"Printed All Over" And Deliberately Leaves The Pattern On The Outside Of The Package
Rolling Stone Presents (39 Of The) 500 Greatest Songs Of All Time
Both Weigh 500g But The Green One Is In A 30% "Bigger Bag More To Share"
Thought I’d Buy Some Colored Pens. Turns Out Every Single One Of Them Has Blue Ink
Bought A Ball Pit For My Baby
Blatant false advertising... there is no baby in the actual package
This Cashew Packaging. I Was Wondering Why My Hand Instantly Hit The Bottom When I Opened It
Bought A Coloring Book And Pencils To Keep Myself Busy While I’m Off Work. Thought These Were Full-Size Pencils
New Packaging (Right), Same Quantity
800 Pieces. Yeah Right. The Box Is Half Blocked And 550 Pieces Are Tiny Dot Pieces. My Son Was Not Happy
I Was Wondering Why This Watermelon Juice Tasted So Weird
Bought Some Eye Makeup, Just Realized One Of The Eyeshadows Isn’t Safe For Eyes. Found Out Via White Print On A White Background
“Not intended for use in the immediate eye area”
New Means What's Inside Is Not New
My Mother Ordered 1000 Plastic Blocks For Her Nephews. Ended Up Receiving 523
Brand New Protein Powder, Not Even Filled Half Whey
8% Alcohol Or
Tesco Is Selling "Flushable" Wet Wipes Which Are "Harmful To Aquatic Life"
New Cereal Box Is 11% Taller With 1.6% Less Cereal
More wasteful packaging. How do the people who come up with these ideas sleep at night. A lot of cereal boxes are half empty. Not only would it save on cardboard, the plastic for the bag inside and the ink, if it were more realistic for the contents, it would also be cheaper to freight because they'd fit more boxes in a truck.
No, It's Not Bigger. It's Of Same Size
9 Sticker Rolls. One Mildly Infuriated 7-Year-Old
"Made In U.S.A"
The case is made in the USA... we can't actually trust them to make the important stuff.
Some Acrylic Paints I Bought
Not only is this deceptive, but it's producing extra packaging for nothing. You know that package and all the paint tubes are going to still be on this planet long after all of us are dead and gone.
True, but also, paint and ink is expensive. A tube (a single tube) of oil paint can cost around 10-20 dollars. Many broke artists can’t even afford one tube, and seeing them charge an expensive price without even giving the full tubes of paint advertised is frustrating.
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Suprising, I bought a lot of artist tools from Daler Rowney and I was always satisfied with quality, such thing never happened to me so far. Also they usually declare the exact amount of color material when it is possible.
But still - why use a bigger-than-necessary box if everything is just peachy? I'll answer: because most people aren't like you and check the amount, or if they do, they have no relation on how much that actually is. It's not really scamming, but it's cheating.
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It's referring to the length of the tubes in comparison to the can, particularly how the label covers the ends of them, not the number of tubes.
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That's why you always check the weight/amount per tube. If it's something like 1 oz of paint then expect a smaller tube.
kinda off subject but i love that brand of paint and recommend it to everyone
there are some packaging products that have literally a 1,000,000 life span....that's like us finding dinosaurs trashed the planet with plastic...millions of years from now...
If label says there are 20 in the container, and you count them, and they’re all there, it shouldn’t be a surprise there’s space in the middle.
I bought some, very good quality and Good Value, Acrylic Paints a while back... in an 'Honest' pack. Good 'range' of colours too.
Always get my paints in those flat cardboard things, hard to get ripped off
Went To Poundland And Had The Choice Between These And After Eights, Got These Cause They We're Bigger, I Paid For Air
Coloring Kit That Is 90% Empty And Counts Each Piece Of Paper As One Piece In 100 Pieces
This should be illegal, but the light weight should tip people off tho.
Package Of The Cheese vs. The Cheese Itself
One Of The Blocks Isn't One Of The Blocks
But can we appreciate the amount of effort put into making that piece of cardboard into looking like a block?
These Were Locked In A Glass Case Facing Forward So You Couldn’t Just Read The Back Before Purchase
This Pizza Tastes Like False Advertising
I'm picturing a sweat shop full of kids frantically rolling 1000s of pizza crusts
Even Worse - It's Stale
Why would anyone buy popcorn in a bag, in a box, in a box with a window anyway?
Thanks Jetstar For My Large Box Of Pencils
Note: this post originally had 144 images. It’s been shortened to the top 50 images based on user votes.
This is the reason there is so much unrecycled rubbish, and country-sized garbage patches in the oceans .... grrr
By the end of this I almost felt like crying. The amount of extra packaging produced all in the name of deception is just depressing. The marketing people behind these sorts of ideas must have no conscience or care for the planet at all.
This is how some countries recycle their garbage
Same.
Nah without this those u recycled garbage patches would still be there. The only reason for them is companies sticking to plastic use instead of better options. And to top it off they invest in clean up days so people can feel good about cleaning up all that plastic.
We have had this series before, but I think this time it got the most entries that are not merely misleading. By EU law most of these packaging would be considered fraud and entitle to a full refund, with the company and/or vendor receiving a formal cease and desist, probably enforced by a penalty. Even without these laws, I am wondering which kind of jerks produce these things. It is unethical on a social and on a ecological level alike.
Hey Hans, I'm a shopper person and I have never actually seen any of these products in print, or in the 'Real'. Now,...I live in the South, but not other parts much at all, so I cannot vouch for the rest of the country. Either way, this is about as fraudulent as I have ever seen.
Unethical on a social and ecological level ? That's uhhh, pretty much the whole point in capitalism
Looks like America and an Asian country or two.
Depending on where you live, the definition of unethical varies.
So happy to live in EU.
Seriously, I‘ve never encountered such obvious scams here
Come to America some time, where it's "profits over people" every day.
At least in Sweden we have imported beauty creams from Italy etc., which have large packagings with small jars. But it still says the amount of mls on it.
Maria Persson no
UK has plenty of misleading/excessive packaging, sadly.
David, you must reside in New Yawk, or New Juezy, correct?
I've seen some things like this - things like face-cream in oversized boxes and very thick jars, and the kids art supply types things from the very cheap shops - but our supermarkets don't seem to have much in the way of food packaged this badly. (New Zealand)
same in France
Yeah, wish we still did.
PauPain easy
Ditto. WTH is wrong with those people?
Narunaru no
Narunaru follower
South Africa seems to have taken it's advertising from you folks too, never seen such blatant scamming with packaging here.
In Germany we have laws against fake packaging and there's a percentage how much bigger the packaging is allowed to be compared to the contents. So this has never happened to me.
... this is what you get when you opt for "getting the government off our backs" and "getting rid of regulations that succomb business". Deserved and served - most of this is banned in the communist EU, while the free USA are the most betray-tray-ridden country. Not for no reason. It still is bad to even try this, but, in a way, ruling it out isn't that hard. You/they allow them to do this, because they and their bootlickers scream "communism" whenever something that only contains common sense is tried, and too much fall for that crap.
So true!!!! Common sense policy is labeled socialist. Government subsidy programs, that do work, are labeled entitlements. Only the worst examples are made public, never the best. The programs grouped together under "entitlements" is misleading. Yes, we have the ability to choose, but how much must we know to make an informed decision? Where are the facts? Less taxes and more services isn't mathematically possible. There isn't as much money wasted by the government as we are lead to believe. $50K screwdriver? A company was asked to determine what screwdriver will work best in space. Pens don't work in space, only pencils. The Russians figured it out first. Many safety changes in military equipment were ignored in the name of cutting government waste. Is that what we are voting for? Does a Capitalist society encourage mild dishonesty? Some major lies? To make the most money, is cheating okay? Are some people better than others?
I think the ultra rich programmed conservatives specifically that way so they could continue this deception.
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You mad, Bro?
The force of social media is strong. How about people stop posting all the conspiracy theories and instead start posting this kind of corporate scamming? But I guess that Facebook would immediately come down like a ton of bricks on groups dedicated to expose this kind of scams.
This isn't interesting enough
I thought this would be an interesting article but it wound up just pissing me off.
Price comparison is impossible unless reading the small print. The calories of one serving of pizza is meaningless. Serving sizes aren't equal. Is this simply capitalism? or something worse?
Jerks.
I know these are meant to be humorous but personally I find them horrifying on multiple levels. Firstly they're blatantly and unashamedly ripping off the consumer but more worrying is the complete disregard for the environment, all to squeeze a few extra pennies out of the consumer. And not only that but some of these are downright dangerous (eye makeup unsuitable for eyes, non diary stuff with milk in it etc). If laws don't already exist to stop this then they need to be implemented asap and companies need to be publicly dragged across the coals for it.
I would have no problem returning the items ans get my $$$ Back!!
This is just ridiculous for people to even think and comprehend on scamming. I think supermarkets and shops should check what they sell before putting them on the shelves. 😖
I just don't understand how this is legal.
Some of these are from dollar store.
Exactly the reasons that capitalism can't be left alone without checks and balances.
I guess non of the vendors/manufacturers of these products want repeat customers. If they were honest they’d probably save a fortune on packaging too.
And here I was thinking only the USA had the "f**k those assholes. We got our profits" business model.
am I the only one who looks at the weight before buying a food item for the first time?
Craig Silberman haha
Some of these don't seem intentional and are just packaging mistakes.
**unholy screeching because of all the rubbish**
Seeing Disney and Cadbury on this list was a serious blow to my trust in Bona Fide companies...
This is precisely why consumers need to read the entire label/packaging including weights and amounts. We must support less packaging with our dollars.
I don't understand why companies do this. No one would buy the items again..
Just another lesson about the importance of reading the small print.
Some appear to be U.S. companies, but I bet they're made somewhere else by someone who bought a license from these companies. Still, they need to pay attention to what's being done in their names and yank some of said licenses. Also, most of this packaging would probably be found to be fraudulent in the U.S. as well. I noticed only one where the "empty" space was used to package something the consumer may want - the sauce for the wrap. The rest of it serves no legitimate purpose and serves only to mislead consumers. They are counting on people relying on the packaging and not checking the small print. And it obviously works.
this THIS ***THIS*** is why we have REGULATION!!!! To P R O T E C T you.
Ruth Farcas lol
My takeaway is to always check the weight and feel the pack. Those with windows showing only a section are the most highly suspicious ones.
Such blatant dishonesty - totally taking advantage of normal consumers! Wicked! - makes my blood boil!!