In the June issue of Shelf Impact!, a panel of package designers and design managers lamented the challenges that the realities of their jobs place on achieving effective package designs. This month, we balance those views with one perspective from inside a retailer.

In June, Shelf Impact! asked how you incorporate packaging graphics and structure to sell the emotion in your brand. Twenty-eight readers responded and some of your answers were downright thoughtful.

“We’ve designed the structure and graphics for a line of fitness products for women. We used transparency, curves, and unique, rounded forms to make the package appealing while looking strong and high quality. The graphics convey a premium, authentic image for the product line.”—Chet Makoski, Donaldson Makoski Inc.

I’m a fan of foreign cultures. I often associate a country or experience with a unique aroma I encounter there. At the recent Interpack in Düsseldorf, Germany, I again had the opportunity to drink in the aroma of Egyptian cold-pressed olive oil. But it was the package design—not the aroma—of New Salheya Olive Oil Mill’s premium olive oil that attracted my attention.

The slender, oval-topped wooden box is as stunning as Cleopatra herself. Topped with a retractable, angular wood handle, the box is draped in a cross-patterned papyrus. The papyrus is preprinted in black and white, over which hand-painted images of Egyptian olive pickers and sundry classic period images are depicted in bronze, rust, emerald, turquoise, and gold-tinted tones. The papyrus masterpiece is laminated to the box and lid.

Are you responsible for managing the packaging research and development process in your organization? If so, you may gain invaluable insights to help you do your job better by attending the seventh annual Market Research and Development for Package Design conference Sept. 21-23, 2005, at the W Chicago City Center in Chicago.

The conference host is the Institute for International Research, and Shelf Impact! is a media partner.

Q: How can I create successful brand extensions?

A: Brand extensions can leverage a brand’s assets and equity by marketing new products or services. While this strategy offers significant strengths to brand extensions, significant risks can arise in diluting or severely damaging the brand. Typical brand extensions include basic line additions within the same segment—from Coke to Vanilla Coke, for example.

Many brand managers believe it makes sense to “transfer” the promise and equity of their established brand to another product. But that isn’t always true. In fact, many companies go too far in trying to extend their brand to products or services that are a poor fit and risk losing credibility in their flagship brands in the process.

The key to successful brand extensions is determining that those proposed are consistent with the brand’s core values. Not from the marketing department’s point of view, but from the consumer’s point of view.

The nation’s leading supplier of fresh-cut packaged onions, Gills Onions of Oxnard, CA, is changing its approach to retail packaging by offering a rigid package as an alternative to flexible-film packs.

In March 2005, in response to retailers who thought it would display better, Gills Onions released a thermoformed PET cup with heat-sealed film lidding and a snap-fit overcap.

New packaging emphasizes education, speed of product selection, and above all, discretion

When mining ideas for packaging that communicates the product message fast and leads to the correct product selection, few categories offer keener on-shelf insights than absorbent-care products. Within this category, Kimberly-Clark believes it has taken a major step in improving the stature of its Depend brand of absorbent products, ironically by becoming more discreet.

The company’s approach may hold clues for perceptive marketers of other products that attract the fast-growing aging-baby-boomer market.

Both product users and caregivers told Kimberly-Clark researchers that shopping for adult incontinence products is embarrassing. They want to select their product and leave the aisle. Yet, consumers said the packaging confuses them, and in their haste, they often purchase the wrong product.

“Finding the right product solution can add greatly to the quality of their lives, and we don’t want a lack of information, or feelings of embarrassment, to become obstacles in meeting consumers’ needs,” says Tim Lehman, President, Kimberly-Clark Adult and Feminine Care Sector.

Spirits and liqueurs are two “hot” segments in alcoholic beverages, for two reasons, according to Mintel’s Global New Products Database. First, advanced distilling, filtering, and aging techniques are giving products better taste, color, and aroma—and perceptions of uniqueness. Second, good-for-you and organic options appeal to some consumers.

The right package is essential in supporting either strategy in an increasingly crowded market. Mintel reports that 1,121 new spirits and liqueurs brands were introduced worldwide between January 2003 and March 2005.

By taking a “big-picture” view of its brand of garden sprayers, Chapin International, Batavia, NY, has grown sales more than 10% in a staid lawn and garden products category, which traditionally appeals to males. Females now comprise 40% of the brand’s sales, up from 10% several years ago.

Chapin created a subcategory by restaging its sprayers as a lifestyle brand in which the package works at a higher emotional level as a lifestyle brand, rather than functioning as an “industrial” container, says Chuck Mattes, Vice President, Sales and Marketing.

LPK, a Cincinnati brand design agency, conducted consumer product research and did the package designs. The new packaging’s soft, curvilinear container shape incorporates patented features and a tactile surface. The entry-level Spray-It 1-gal sprayer’s design provides both consumer and retailer benefits. For consumers, the foam polypropylene handle makes carrying the containers easier.

Drug firms start RFID tagging, and anti-counterfeiting tactics expand as CPGs get more aggressive to protect brands

Consumer product goods companies today are applying brand protection and package security tactics that were just ideas only 12 months earlier. And they are using multiple levels of security to deliver the protection they need.

Why is package design management often in the corporate cost-savings cross hairs? Why is the process not valued more highly? The answers are rooted in three primary issues: an absence of “best practices,” a lack of autonomy, and an inability to measure packaging’s financial impact.

Most CPGs organize their marketing department and manage procurement, accounting, and sales similarly. However, few CPGs manage brand identity and package design in the same way. And, a growing number of companies have no internal package design management or process. This can’t be good for their packaging’s impact on the store shelf.

This level of extreme inconsistency exists for the following reasons:

• As a widely exhibited generality, design management has no direct link to executive management. In short, package design managers all too often bear all of the responsibility for the process but have little power to fund or direct it.

• Few package design managers control their own project budgets.

• Few CPGs provide for design leadership above middle management.

At the grocery store where Dorothy shops, the retailer positions one row of its own store brand right in the middle of multiple rows of a competing national brand. Both packages look very similar.

Dorothy carefully arranges her shopping trip, and cash-off coupons are part of her planning. “It aggravates me to no end when I get to the check-out and I present my coupon, and I realize that I’ve picked up the store’s brand when I thought I was picking up the national brand,” she says. “I don’t have time to go back and get the brand that I have the coupon for.

“I have complained to the store manager, and it does affect how I feel about their store brand. I won’t buy it.”

As marketers continually raise the bar for achieving shelf impact, the use of special effects as an attention-grabber on packaging is increasing. Sales of specialty films are forecast to advance 5% annually to $7.4 billion by 2009, according to “Specialty Films,” a new study from The Freedonia Group.

Cosmetics is one category in which product packaging is using film to intensify graphic impact. Escada fragrance packaging maximizes its visual appeal with the right combination of paperboard, color, and the use of a sophisticated diffraction effect film.

On Escada Magnetism fragrance packs, the technique creates a stark contrast between the inside and outside of the cartons. The outside panels feature rich-color decoration, an enhanced glossy effect on the letters in the Escada brand name, and an embossed logo on the top panel.

Tradewinds Beverage Co. identified a gap between take-home and single-serve packages in ready-to-serve tea. It bridged the gap with a 1-liter, travel-friendly, clear PET bottle from Constar International.

The hot-filled bottle’s long neck recaptures the look of Tradewinds’ original 22-oz glass package and strikes a nostalgic chord with Tradewinds’ customer base.

Tradewinds is rolling out the distinctive bottle in four flavors of its kettle-brewed tea: Sweet Tea, Extra Sweet Tea, Green Tea, and Lemon Tea.

A new package from Procter & Gamble reflects a growing tactic in club stores by adding a carrying handle on twin-packs of Downy Simple Pleasures liquid fabric softener. The handle, from PakTech, holds two 52-oz bottles of fabric softener and presents a more consumer-convenient package.

The twin-pack is easier to carry than a single, larger container, and two smaller bottles offer storage flexibility and require less storage space than a larger bottle.

The twin-pack’s HDPE handle is platinum pearl in color to match the caps. The PET bottles are tinted purple or blue to reflect the scent varieties.

Link: PakTech

Appliance marketer EuroPro hits several smart-packaging hot buttons with its convection toaster oven. Technology makes the fifth-panel, corrugated carton a value-added product feature.

A “press here” violator on the front panel points to a die-cut section with a red button and a lenticular image of the oven. The image displays arrows that indicate how the heating process works. Pushing the button activates a product message from a speaker behind a star-shaped die-cut, and it causes the lenticular image to vibrate.

The oven was purchased at a Chicago Target store for $50.

Honest Tea extends its brand equity into citrus quenchers with Honest Ade. The company signals its organic-product heritage with green-banner labels and green caps on its PET bottles, and with the USDA organic seal in the lower right corner of the label.

Custom photography of large fruit slices dominates the two-toned, color background on the labels, created by Flowdesign. In a departure from the label design on bottles of its organic tea, Honest Tea’s citrus-quencher labels emphasize taste appeal rather than artwork inside a centralized letter T.

Link: Flowdesign

Procter & Gamble transforms a functional homecare product into a décor item with the redesign of its Frebreze bottle. Product Ventures designed the new bottle’s swan-like silhouette, and other visual elements.

The design emphasizes shape, texture, and sculptural elements to convey product benefits. The bottle’s sculptural detail of blowing drapes communicates efficacy, fabric friendliness, and outdoor freshness. The swirling contour suggests the circulation of a revitalizing breeze.

Flowing lines and rounded corners distinguish the bottle shape from both hard-surface cleaners and air deodorizers. The water-droplet label signifies cleanliness.

Link: Product Ventures Ltd.

Imation Europe is rolling out CDs and DVDs in user-friendly paperboard packs in Europe that consumers prefer to other optical disc cases. The company has opted for DBS Discbox Slider paperboard packs from Stora Enso.

A majority of consumers told the company in a market study that they favor the new packs for their slender size, the configuration of two discs in one case, and the environmental benefits.

“The low weight and slim size of DBS bring savings in transportation costs and shelf space at retail,” says Peter Klinckenberg, EMEA Product Marketing Manager at Imation Europe BV.

Link: Stora Enso