An unprecedented 30,000 new products are expected to flood store shelves in 2006. One of the primary tactics feeding this staggering total is brand extensions. The thinking today is to build additional sales for a brand that has reached saturation in one category by introducing the brand through a new and related product in another category.

Package Design magazine seeks branding and design professionals to vote online to select its annual Makeover Challenge winner. Five teams have re-created new packages and a new brand identity for four SKUs of the Fresh Body Market brand of vegan-certified soap and lotion products.

Bacardi gets $50 for 750-mL of tequila with a glass bottle that reflects the modern art of Mexico. “Our goal was to create a super premium tequila and a package that’s in a class of its own. It’s a true premium offering—both product and package,” says Yousef Zaatar, Vice President Global Packaging at Bacardi.

Niche marketers are introducing a variety of new beverages in part because of a supply chain that supports their needs. One of them, MD Drinks, Santa Monica, CA, has introduced Urban Detox, a science-based, all-natural functional beverage marketed as a remedy for hangovers in stores on the West Coast and in the Southwest. Urban Detox is a subbrand under the Function umbrella.

Unlike its namesake duo, complementary glass bottles for two-part Jekyll & Hyde distilled beverages have produced good results in test marketing at retail outlets.

In June, Shelf Impact! asked readers this question: “From a creative perspective, what is the reason, most often, that new packaging initiatives fail?”

ark Gilbert, a professor at the Harvard Business School, will present a keynote address revealing the opportunities that lie in disruptive innovation during the 8th annual “Proof: Market Research & Development For Package Design” conference. The event will be from Sept. 25-27, 2006, at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.

Consumers’ cereal packaging needs (and those of frustrated bag-in-box cereal eaters everywhere) are about to be realized with the sleeve-in-pouch (SIP) package design. The brainchild of Hosokawa Yoko, the SIP design emulates the cube of a carton, offers the easy-open/reclosure attributes of a zipper, and capitalizes on the efficiencies of in-line form-fill-seal manufacturing.

Hewlett Packard’s move to RPETG gives its club store packs of ink-jet cartridges an environmentally friendlier edgs.

Here's a worthwhile exercise: Ask yourself and your package design team, "What If?" The challenge is to use great packaging ideas being introduced elsewhere not as a template for your own projects, but as inspiration for what could be for your packaged products. If you had no budget and no limitations, how would you engage shoppers and create shelf space that really grabs a consumer and makes an impact? Here is a list of "What Ifs" to ponder: