BIH: How Can Packaging Deceive Your Everyday Shopping Experience?

We use a wide range of products daily: food, cosmetics, chemicals, textiles, electronics, and more. Manufacturers strive to find the best way to make their product stand out from others. Sometimes it's aggressive marketing, other times it's attractive packaging or design. It's becoming less common for products to speak for themselves through their quality.

However, for some products, there are regulations that prevent attributing properties they don't have (e.g., effectiveness in treating a health condition) or concealing properties they do have (e.g., the irritant properties of dish detergent).

It's crucial that when presenting products, consumers are not misled about the product's purpose (through advertising, packaging, etc.). This can happen unintentionally. For example, innocuous graphics of fruit on a body care product. Or bath bombs shaped like delicious cakes.

Even when a product's purpose is clearly stated—e.g., dishwashing detergent—consumers might confuse it with another product due to similar packaging and design (e.g., a non-alcoholic beverage). This can lead to injuries.

Let's look at the regulations governing this issue.

Chemical regulations set clear rules for labeling hazardous properties, which I've written about many times. It's also defined that any advertising of a hazardous chemical must indicate the appropriate hazard class. This applies to online advertising as well.

In the Republic of Srpska, the Regulation on Classification, Labeling, and Packaging states that labels or packaging of hazardous chemicals cannot include statements like "non-toxic," "harmless," or "eco-friendly."

Additionally, packaging containing a hazardous chemical intended for general use (e.g., dish detergent) must not have:

• a shape or design that could attract children's attention or mislead consumers,
• a similar presentation or design used for food, animal feed, medicines, medical devices, or cosmetic products that could mislead consumers.

The same applies to biocide regulations. The Regulation on Specific Requirements for Classification, Packaging, Labeling, and Advertising of Biocides states: "Biocides must be packaged in a way that avoids any possibility of misleading users into confusing it with food packaging for humans, animal feed, or beverages."

When it comes to detergents, the regulations are even more precise. The Regulation on Detergents specifies: "Graphic depictions of food that could mislead consumers about the product's purpose and usage must not be used on liquid product packaging."

It is expected that with the adoption of additional regulations, the same rules will apply in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Even when a product is adequately packaged and labeled, we can create problems ourselves: for example, by pouring cleaning agents into a non-alcoholic beverage container. Have you ever done this? Or read about such cases in the news?

Let's also look at the rules for general use items.

The Law on General Use Items of the Republic of Srpska prohibits:

• advertising general use items in a way that could mislead consumers about their composition, properties, and purpose,
• attributing and advertising medicinal properties to a general use item.

Additionally, the Regulation on the Safety of Consumer Goods states that when labeling and advertising a cosmetic product, text, images, or symbols that attribute features or functions the product does not have cannot be used.

If you're designing a label or packaging for a chemical or similar product, pay attention to these rules. Ignoring them can lead to the product being labeled as unsafe and removed from the market.

What are your experiences? Write to me at nina.pajovic@bens-consulting.eu.