Some Names Just Sound Thick — BP&O
BP&O Plus
In 1929, psychologist Wolfgang Köhler asked people a simple question. Which made-up word belongs to the rounded shape and which belongs to the spiky one?
Almost everyone gave the same answer.
Soft, rounded sounds belonged to the rounded shape. Sharp, hard sounds belonged to the spiky one. Nearly a century later, the Bouba-Kiki effect has been replicated across languages and cultures with the same result. We hear shape before we understand meaning.
Bouf starts making a lot more sense once you know that.
Created by Melbourne agency Willow & Blake for founder Rachael Wilde and York St Brands, the name lands with a soft, heavy thud. The rounded “ou” does a surprising amount of work before you’ve read another word. Research by Stanford’s Laura Yorkston and Geeta Menon found back-vowel sounds such as “ou” are consistently associated with products perceived as larger, heavier and more powerful, while front vowels are associated with things that feel lighter and smaller.
The bottle is short and wide rather than tall. The caps are ribbed, echoing thick hair strands, while the same linear detail runs through the outer packaging as a pinstripe. Saturated crimson cuts through an aisle dominated by creams and pale pinks.
“Hair so thick it’ll fail an IQ test.”
“What a little bouf head.”
Creative Director Bri Nixon said the ambition was to create an immediate reaction.
Hair-loss packaging usually speaks in careful, clinical language and relies on before-and-after promises. Bouf treats the subject with humour. The audience is largely postpartum women experiencing hair thinning, but the brand assumes they would rather laugh with it than be talked to like a patient.
Whether that reads as iconic or unhinged probably depends on how thick your hair is.