Apparently the packaging wins out over the packaged celeb.

A recent poll of 2,009 UK consumers found that just 10% were influenced by celebrity endorsements. The poll, conducted for the nonprofit group AccountAbility and Britain's National Consumer Council, suggested that while the public might be desperate to know about celebs' private lives, they're not desperate to follow their example.

That's good news for Dara O'Donnell, marketing manager for DCC's healthfood brand Kelkin, who has perhaps demonstrated more passion for packaging since taking on the job two years ago than is strictly healthy.

"I was that boring kid who read the whole Cornflakes packet, " he said. " 'By appointment to her majesty the Queen' even though we live in Ireland. The fact that I still remember says something about the impact packaging can have."

Kelkin, in its 30th year in Ireland, redesigned its packaging to better highlight the nutritional value of the products. Colour-coded pictogram symbols were added: an arrow inscribed on a red circle symbolising "low in salt"; a chemistry set beaker with a line through it on a golden circle symbolising "no preservatives"; a crossedthrough sheaf of wheat on a green circle meaning "gluten free".

O'Donnell says he got the idea while travelling in Japan.

"I can't read Japanese, so I couldn't read the product labels, " he said, but Japanese packaging uses a lot of iconography. "I was fascinated.

It's the basic premise of the USPs of each product. It was a far more engaging pack. A lot to do, a lot to navigate on it."

At Kelkin, which has abovethe-line advertising as a tiny proportion of its marketing mix, O'Donnell found a place to apply what he'd seen in the East. "There were opportunities to look at what our brand stands for, " he said.

"It's the provenance of our products. All of them have no added sugar [except Cranberry juice, which would be undrinkable without a sweetener], no added salt. The basic DNA of our products is fundamentally sound. Rather than hide that fact, I wanted to communicate it in an open way." Kelkin, with its traditional appeal to over-40s who swear by the particular benefits of prune juice or cranberry juice, was in some ways well prepared to take advantage of shifting consumer tastes. Food brands across the board are looking to reposition as healthier iterations of themselves . . . something O'Donnell saw in his previous job as a product group manager for Tayto, where he worked on the Honest range of healthier snacks.

O'Donnell said he would welcome it if his competitors were to follow Kelkin's example and add clearer nutritional claims, partly because it would push regulators to come up with a uniform standard. In fact, that process is well underway.

New EU regulations on what nutritional claims can be made on packaging are expected by September of this year. There's also a consultation process underway that may lead by 2009 to new EU regulations on labelling, including the possible standardisation of logos, according to Neil McGowan, head of regulatory affairs at Food and Drink Industry Ireland.

At the moment, O'Donnell is using the considerable consumer confusion about labelling to Kelkin's advantage by offering classes about how to read labels.

"I didn't believe it either.

When we had the first one, I expected maybe five or six people would turn up. Instead we had a full house. I was shocked."

More than 600 people have turned out so far for the evening seminars the company has held in Dublin city centre hotels. "These were educated, ABC1 consumers, about 99% female, who didn't have a clue about how to read labels, " O'Donnell says.

Kelkin's next class will be in The Hilton on 13 September.

The exercise has been successful so far, according to O'Donnell. Brand awareness had risen from 39% before the effort to 60% within a year of its introduction.