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Can the impact of dollars invested in a package redesign be measured on the bottom line? United States Beverage believes the answer is yes. The company markets and manages Seagram’s Coolers, a 20-year-old brand owned by Pernod-Ricard USA, Lawrenceburg, IN.
In our April 2005 issue, Shelf Impact! reported that with sales stagnating or declining across Seagram’s family of wine coolers, U.S. Beverage in 2004 had discarded the brand’s iconic appearance and restaged the brand as Seagram’s Cooler Escapes, with more contemporary graphics that accentuate the fun inherent in consuming the fruity, low-alcohol-content beverage.
In November, Shelf Impact! also asked readers what tactics you have in place to measure packaging “wear out” before product sales decline. Thirty-eight readers answered this question, and 15 of you said you have no process in place for measuring package wear out. Here are some of your responses:
“We have none in place. As manufacturers, we rely on feedback from our customers (e.g. Home Depot, True Value, Ace Hardware, etc.) with regard to packaging improvements and changes.”
“Ongoing online research.”
“Focus groups every two years to measure perception and acceptance by the consumer.”
“We're in the process of testing several options and doing feasibility analysis.”
“Close customer contact.”
“Packaging equity research.”
“We just keep an eye on sales and react as necessary.”
Energizer produced 1.5 million 10-packs of pink batteries that hit Target shelves in October to coincide with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Visit www.komen.org and www.energizer.com/sgk.
Jeffrey Roth, Energizer Holdings Inc.’s Brand Manager/National Promotions, says Energizer has a longstanding relationship with the local St. Louis chapter of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Energizer has been a regular local contributor, but wanted to step up on a national scale.
Tapping its iconic pink Energizer Bunny, known for the ability to keep “going and going and going,” Energizer adapted the slogan to an inspirational message associated with fighting breast cancer: “The Power to Keep Going.”
The third annual Package Design 2006 Conference & Technology Exposition is just a few weeks away, and registration is strong. The conference will offer presentations and a variety of interactive events to spotlight packaging’s increasing importance as a marketing tool. The event will be Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2006, at the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort in Clearwater Beach, FL.
Alex Isley, Principal at Alexander Isley Inc., will be the keynote inspirational speaker. Isley will share his guilty pleasures, pet peeves, and inspirations in package design.
Additional speakers will include:
• Paul France, Principal Engineer, Procter & Gamble.
• Mark Yunker, Senior Packaging Engineer, Imperial Sugar Co.
• Sandra Marshall, CEO and Chief Scientist, EyeTracking Inc.
• Dena Ladner, Manager, North American Lubricants Innovation/D-I-Y Packaging, Shell Lubricants.
Shoppers bring unique mind-sets to each shopping trip based on time of day and other events in their lives. Time is more constrained on some trips than others. In spite of these variables, however, the marketer’s goal is always clear: communicate a clear reason to buy today.
Leadership brands answer all these challenges, and they follow four principles in retail stores. They understand the need to plan, capture, connect, and activate.
Principle 1: Plan. Design the right brand experience for a specific shopper, at a specific retailer. Shoppers behave differently based on the type of channel and retailer. Behavior changes when shopping for tonight’s dinner versus stocking up.
Principle 2: Capture. Drive attention through discontinuity. Know how shoppers navigate the category, and then create a unique category experience.
A growing challenge facing packagers today is creating a “billboard” on measured-purchase products that are displayed outside of the package. While consumers can examine the product before deciding whether to purchase it, marketers lose billboard space when the product itself rests on a hook or display shelf.
Black & Decker, Towson, MD, believes it has solved that challenge by revamping the design of point-of-purchase (P-O-P) communications for its power tools. Sara Simonsen, Brand Manager, says, “Our main objective was to look consistent, to put more emphasis on the Black & Decker brand, and have the P-O-P be easier to understand from a consumer standpoint.”
The ability to quickly understand product features and to differentiate between brands in higher-priced tools such as electric hedge trimmers is important to consumers. Equally important to brand owners and retailers alike is packaging elements that are durable enough to withstand the wear and tear when consumers repeatedly pick up a product to inspect it in the store.
The Private Label Manufacturers Association’s 2005 PLMA roundtable report, “From Merchant to Marketer: Exploring the Evolution of Modern Retailing”, originates from a panel of experts working in a cross-section of industries, from product manufacturing to market research to consultants, trade journalists, and financial analysts. Among its conclusions, here is what the roundtable’s 20-page report says about the evolution of modern retailing and private-label branding as a component in the mix:
1. The transformation of retailers is continuing. U.S. retailers have evolved profoundly over the past decade, in the process placing more power in the hands of retail chains in terms of how they operate their stores. Store brands have benefited significantly from this trend.
2. The longtime model of trade classes is no longer relevant. Instead of the three traditional classes of trade—supermarkets, drug stores and mass merchandisers—a more accurate representation recognizes contemporary environmental influences in which retailers understand that the consumer, rather than the store or the manufacturer, inspires the brand.
Retailers are increasing the sophistication and flexibility of their own brands—in part through strikingly upgraded packaging. Growth continues so strongly that private-label brands are challenging the marketing axiom that the only way to build brand equity with consumers is through widespread, national production distribution.
This observation comes from the Private Label Manufacturers Association’s 2005 roundtable report, and the numbers from both the association’s own studies, other reports, and from individual retailers support the roundtable’s findings.
• Store brands account for 19.6% of units purchased across all product lines and distribution channels, according to the PLMA. The figures exclude Wal-Mart, which no longer participates in retail data-reporting programs.
• Retail industry analysts interviewed for the 2005 Packaging Strategies report “Contract Packaging: Strategic Opportunities and Profit Potential,” estimated that in 2004 private-label brands accounted for about 40% of Wal-Mart’s sales.
Winning strategies will focus on the needs of retailers and the consumer as both shopper and product user. Co-packers will play a bigger role in the value equation.
Packaging today must answer increasingly sophisticated retailer needs and satisfy the consumer throughout the product’s life cycle—while still managing somehow to take cost out of the system.
Branding, marketing, and package design experts contacted by Shelf Impact! agree that packaging strategies aimed at answering these three challenges should guide product packagers heading into 2006. They believe these challenges will profoundly influence strategies for creating packages with the best marketing impact in the coming year and beyond.
Packaging plays an especially important role in driving impulse sales of distilled spirits during the holidays, a season in which nearly 25% of the category’s annual sales are tied to gift packaging.
Frangelico hazelnut liqueur from northern Italy demonstrates this seasonal impact with a gift pack created by The Bailey Group. The pack displays warm, rich, deep tone-on-tone red, brown, and orange hues to capture the fun-loving, sophisticated consumer who appreciates and enjoys simple indulgence.
Both the 750-mL holiday carton and the holiday gift pack, which includes a 375-mL bottle of liqueur and two drinking glasses, create a relaxing mood.
Three microwavable aseptic-packaged sauces from Chef Creations are intended to attract time-pressed consumers who enjoy better foods with less preparation work.
Chef Creations offers alfredo sauce, hollandaise sauce, and a classic brown sauce in Tetra Wedge® containers from Tetra Pak. Chef Creations says the patented barrier-protection packaging protects the taste from spoiling while also offering the quick-meal solution of “microwave dining.”
Each package holds 6.75-oz of sauce, is shelf-stable, and protects the quality of the contents without the need for preservatives. Consumers can microwave the sauces right in the package, eliminating the step of pouring the sauce into a dish before heating in the microwave.
Studies on consumer behavior are finding that distinguishing your product can be a dual-sided effort. Consumers often act differently outside of the store than they do when shopping inside.
In-store triggers that can alter consumer behavior fall into two categories: habit and environment. Both are equally influential in shaping consumers’ shopping habits. Habit triggers are just that—habit. Consumers continue to buy the same brands until something makes them change their mind. Environmental triggers have the power to break habits and begin new purchasing patterns. For example, a child standing in the cookie aisle could remind someone of cookies they used to eat.
The resealable aluminum bottle comes to Latin America with Hot Hangover Tea. Innovacion Comercial en Alimentos S.A. de C.V. markets the beverage.
The bottle, from CCL Container, features a threaded plastic sleeve that is fitted to the top of the container to accommodate tamper-evident, resealable plastic caps and to heighten visual impact.
The lightweight aluminum bottle enables the marketer to create a new beverage category in Latin America with Hot Hangover Tea. The label’s rich red color and bold fonts position the product as an invigorating drink with herb extracts and amino acids that help reduce the unpleasant sensations associated with a hangover.
O-I Venezuela identified the potential market value associated with colored glass containers and approached beverage manufacturer and marketer Cerveceria Polar. The result was a cobalt-blue glass bottle and the reintroduction of Solera Light Beer in Venezuela.
The 250-mL longneck features an oval, metallic label and a silver cap, giving the brand distinction in the beer aisle, says Hernan Perez, Cerveceria Polar Marketing Manager. The blue bottle improved Cerveceria Polar’s beer market share in Venezuela to 5% and its market penetration to 73%.
O-I Venezuela’s research found that consumers associate a cobalt-blue bottle with attributes such as fashion and contemporary.
It is clear, judging from the insights awaiting you throughout this issue of Shelf Impact!, that consumer products companies face increasingly complex packaging challenges in navigating today’s retailing environment. Underscoring the entire playing field is the fact that retailers, through increasingly sophisticated store-brand tactics, have become foe as well as friend to marketers.
Over the past 32 years, Hallmark has focused on unique shapes and designs to create collector value for each of its 3,000 holiday ornaments. For its 2005 limited-edition ornaments, the collector value comes in the “label,” a festively decorated shrink sleeve.
The labels appear on two different Hallmark ornaments for 2005 The labels, from SleeveCo., are printed in six colors on PVC shrink film.
A survey of 308 school-age children in four markets found that 94% of them preferred to drink milk from a plastic bottle rather than a paper carton.
A majority of the students said the plastic bottle is easier to open and drink from, and they perceived that milk tastes better when consumed from a plastic bottle. The students indicated that plastic bottles are more convenient to use, even though the traditional gable-top carton has, in recent years, added convenience features such as spouts.
Those findings are from a recent study conducted by Peryam & Kroll Research Corp. on behalf of the National Dairy Council.
Among the specific findings:
• Some 83% of school children said that milk in the plastic bottle was “better overall,” compared with the identical brand of milk packaged in a paper carton.
• About 86% of school children said the plastic bottle was “easier to drink from.”
• Some 67% of school children said the plastic bottle was “easier to open” than the paper carton.
According to Dairy Management Inc., more than one million students in 1,500 schools nationally drink milk in plastic packaging and in multiple flavors. This compares with about 400 schools that offered milk in plastic packaging during the 2003-2004 school year.
Piedmont Distillers, Madison, NC, wanted a distinctive bottle design to introduce its Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine regional brand with special appeal for Jägermeister consumers. It opted for a modern interpretation of a ceramic moonshine jug, created by Flowdesign.
The amber glass on the 750-mL bottle’s domed neck flows downward into a ridge to emulate a moonshine jug. Triple Xs are embossed on the glass below the ridge, and the brand logo is embossed in the label area on the glass.
The wraparound label is a ceramic material that’s sprayed and baked onto the glass. Text is screen-printed onto the label in two colors plus a blended color for the cream background.
What could prompt beer lovers to stand in line to pay $13 for a six-pack of beer, twice the typical retail price for microbrewed beers? For Houston-based microbrewery Saint Arnold Brewing Co., the answer is limited batches of different microbrews, in packaging that communicates the beer’s limited availability as well as its super-premium quality.
The first microbrew, marketed under the Saint Arnold Divine Reserve brand, is an American barley wine. The brewery produced 327 cases of the brew under the sub-brand Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 1. The entire stock sold out in 15 minutes at select retail outlets in major Texas cities.
