Booth's pilchards in tomato sauce tin label
The pattern
This still is filed under Iconic figure claim.
Define
A single figure, drawn, silhouetted, or posed, is the whole claim. You can read it across a street.
Mechanism
Compression into a body. The figure is not decoration. It is the sentence. Distance-legibility is the test.
Verdict
Poster scale, outdoor, packaging at a glance
Why it works
The shape is the advertisement. Cutting the board to the silhouette of the fish means the object announces the product before a single word is read, and the yellow crescent does double duty as a contrast halo and as the only surface the type can sit on. The benefit line is the whole positioning in four words: it concedes the price motive outright and reframes it as good sense, which is the correct move for a downmarket substitute rather than pretending to be the premium fish. Red on yellow is the strongest legible pairing at the small size a hanging card gets seen at, from an angle, in a crowded store.
Steal this when
Use this when the product has a strong, instantly readable silhouette and you are competing for attention in a physically cluttered space. Cut the piece to the shape of the thing itself and hold the copy to one benefit line so the form is not fighting the words.