What really is this thing we call packaging innovation, how is it nourished, and how can it be successfully woven into a company’s approach to package design? Shelf Impact! Asked Elizabeth Head-Fischer, Packaging Design Manager at Texas Instruments; Michael Livolsi, Package Design Consultant formerly with Unilever; and Arno Melchior, Global Packaging Director at Reckitt Benckiser.

SI:How would you define innovation?

Livolsi: In terms of brand plus packag. It must take into account the complete 30-degree branding graphics as well as structure. Paying attention to category cues is important, too

Melchior: The thing without which we lose market share. If your competition moves ahead and you’re still in an outdated-looking package, you’ll definitely be left behind.

SI: Liz, dose senior management give your industrial design group of managers and so forth a lot of leeway in the trial-and error phase of package development?

Head-Fischer: We're given enough leeway. We're not expected to be on target from the get-go. But you have to have sound logic behind the moves you're proposing. And you have to be able to demonstrate that you're guided by sound testing procedures, not only with focus groups but against International Safe Transit Association guidelines and all the subsequent testing procedures and metrics that carry a package through.

SI: Can you name a recently introduced package that you classify as an innovation success?

Livolsi: Unilever's Axe line of men's care products was quite successful in connecting with young males. Their expectations for a product that really delivers an experience are met by a design that is striking, yet the package is user-friendly while managing to showcase both product and package. Clorox is another good example. One key to successful innovation in package design is that ability to hold onto category cues, yet still push ahead of those cues to create some new news. I think Clorox has done this quite effectively with Ultimate Care Premium Bleach. The package almost has a Woolite-like quality to it in the way it conveys notes of gentleness. But with this line extension, they hold onto the credibility of Clorox, yet bring to the package qualities that are gentle. The package suggests clothes will be cleaned in a gentle way.

Melchior: The dual-chamber bottle used for both Spray 'n Wash laundry cleaner and Resolve carpet cleanser. This bottle has two chambers and a complicated dispensing head that mixes the two liquids. As soon as you combine the two liquids, they start to fizz and go to work on stains. The dispensing head we came up with includes five injection-molded plastic parts. It involved 10 injection molds and three or four blow molds.

Last month, we also asked readers this question: How will you respond to Wal-Mart's push for reduced packaging, with scorecards to track the results? Many of the responses basically said, “Whatever Wal-Mart wants, we provide.” Following are some of your thoughts.

“Right now, they are not ready for prime time. For example, PVC gets a better recycling score than recycled paperboard.”

“We have our own initiatives to sustain the environment, so we feel we are ahead of Wal-Mart's push.”

“What does Wal-Mart know about packaging technology besides who gives them the cheapest price, which may have no correlation whatsoever with the best package for the application and the environment?”

“We will respond very slowly and wait and see if this takes off.”

Do structure improvements translate to a positive return on investment? The answer is a qualified yes, according to a new consumer study of packaging innovation conducted by Perception Research Service (PRS) and the Institute of Packaging Professionals(IoPP).

Across the range of product categories studied, the most consistent finding was that packaging innovation could significantly impact shoppers’ price expectations and purchase decisions. In more than half the cases, new packages drove increases of 20 cents or more in anticipated product pricing.

The study also found that innovative packages dramatically impacted shoppers’ brand selections (with packaging and pricing in view) in more than half the categories studied. However, the study also demonstrated that “the power of packaging” could work both ways. In cases, innovative packages significantly detracted from shopper preference. Clearly, success is packaging innovating as an end in itself.

By speaking with shoppers about specific packages and functional benefits, the study provided insight centered two primary questions:

1. Which packaging innovations are most likely to make a different?

2. How dose packaging innovation link to decision making?

To address the first objective, PRS and IoPP asked shoppers about packaging features and benefits that are more important to them within the eight product categories studied. Some trends emerged:

· In food-related categories (such as sugar, raisins and potato chips), product protection and tamper resistance consistently ranked as top priorities. These were typically cited as “extremely important” by more than 75% of survey respondents.

· In non-food categories, product protection was typically secondary to ease of opening and dispensing.
On a broader level, the survey results show that asking shoppers “What matters to you?” is probably less valuable than identifying unmet functional needs within specific product categories.

The study demonstrates that innovative packaging systems can directly impact shoppers’ price expectations and product selection. Thus, if innovation is done properly, it is very likely to provide a properly, it is very likely to provide a positive return on investment (ROI) through increased market share or the ability to raise prices to cover incremental costs.

The most significant example of the positive impact of innovation is in the sugar category. An analysis of information from respondents indicates that the new packaging structure for the Domino brand addresses an unmet category need for a recloseable package. It also yields the following results:

· Despite a smaller size, the new Domino package drove a significantly higher price expectation ($3.38) than that for the former packaging ($2.96). While Domino had actually lowered pricing by 10 cents when introducing the new package (due to the smaller size ), this finding suggested that Domino could have actually raised prices—and been very likely to pass along the costs of the new structure without compromising sales.

· When respondents were faced with actual retail pricing and asked to choose between the new Domino package and a lower-priced, store- brand competitor’s package , packaging structure impacted the purchase decision significantly. Domino went from being selected 55% of the time in the former package to being the choice among 74% of respondents in the new package.

Read more about the study results. To purchase this study, contact Young at syoung@prsresearch.com or 201/346-1600.

- By Scott Young, President Perception Research Services

Increasingly, it appears that products with a strong focus on simple packaging resonate best with consumers. However, the trick for packaging is to provide a relatively complicated solution in a very simple way. It’s even better when the solution is a bit playful.

That’s the case with My Dolmio Creamy Tomato Sauce from Masterfoods. Sold in the U.K. and Ireland, My Dolmio pasta sauces come in single-serve stand-up pouches. Of course, in the United States we would never have a product that also requires consumers to prepare pasta as a simple after-school snack, but that concept seems to work in the U.K. Kids cut open the pouch, pop it into the microwave, heat, remove, and pour. That’s where simplicity comes in.

Two features on this pouch help ensure success for kids and teens. First, the pouch’s curved “pitcher” shape helps ensure that when the container is opened, the heated contents will be less likely to “spurt out.” Second is the playful part. A thumbprint and the copy say “Hold me from here.” The pouch’s seal is wider in this area so that kids and teens can grab it there without burning their fingers—the sealed portion stays cool.

What a fun and easy-to-use package!

- By Lynn Dornblaser, Mintel International From Package Design magazine

We live in an image-driven culture that exposes thousands of images to us every day. To make your brand stand out in a crowd, it has to communicate to your consumer in a memorable way. And do so in a way that can’t be confused with your competition. Great food photography does that.

With unprecedented product choices in the retail landscape, it’s essential to provide appetite appeal that triggers an immediate “buy it” reaction in consumers’ minds.

Savvy consumer packaged goods companies know their brands and their consumers intimately. Package designers and food photographers alike must have an equally intimate knowledge of the brand, the brand’s competition, and the target consumer as they develop the visual “feel” of a brand’s packaging. All elements must stay within the brand’s “character.” Depending on the character, photography can be fun and playful, warm and inviting, light and fresh, or sinfully indulgent.

Who are your consumers? What types of magazines do they read? What do they watch? If your audience is composed of people who read Gourmet, Bon Appetit, or Food and Wine, and who watch the Food Network, then thay may be open to contemporary or cutting-edge images. On the other hand, these images might not appeal to the “meat-and-potatoes” crowd.

Consumers who buy organic products usually read magazines that show food in more natural environments. Backgrounds are photographed out of focus and with natural styling. Pro-organic consumers relate this style of photography to healthful, natural products.

Who is your competition? How are you different? Can you show that through your package? Call attention to your product by creating images that are more appetite appealing than those for competing brands. You can also add simple props and backgrounds that correlate to your brand’s essence.

Consider Steak House Choice Pub Style Burgers (an Albertson’s private-label brand). These are expensive, high-quality products, and the photograph is the key asset on the package that communicates this quality difference to consumers. The packaging photography features rich, dark, wood backgrounds that consumers associate with a premium steakhouse.

Complementary lighting amplifies the texture and the moistness of the meat while also creating dark shadows to make the product seem bolder. The angle of the light focuses attention on the product while illuminating enough background to provide a sense of place.

Read on for more of Teri Campbell’s thoughts on mouthwatering food-packaging photography.

Teri Campbell is a former photographer for Procter & Gamble’s in-house creative group. His studio handles packaging photography for companies including P&G, Kellogg’s, HJ Heinz Co., Campbell’s, and Kroger.

- By Teri Campbell Creative Leader, Teri Studios

Look for compensating behaviors in your product users. That’s an axiom for good package design that’s making a buzz in marketing circles.

Heinz’s new Fridge Door Fit ketchup bottle grew out of this approach. Plenty of other untapped opportunities also await. Success may require examining not only compensating behaviors but also the cost of doing nothing.

Consider motor oil. Every vehicle owner changes their oil regularly. Motorists fall into one of two camps on oil regularly. Motorists fall into one of two camps on oil changes: Some are do-it-yourselfers while the rest of us patronize the neighborhood quick-lube garage.

Ronald deVlam has a great idea for a motor oil package for the D-I-Y crowd: a dual-chamber container. One chamber holds new oil and the other is a receptacle for used oil drained from the vehicle.

The extra chamber serves two purposes. First, it eliminates the inconvenience of emptying used oil into a separate container and taking it to a recycling center. Or worse, dumping it in the trash or into the soil. Second, consider a motor oil brand that doesn’t enjoy much distribution through oil-change shops. A value-added retail package may convert some consumers who patronize oil-change garages into D-I-Yers and loyalists of the forward-thinking brand.

The dual-chamber container would include room for a postage-paid label to ship the spent oil to a recycler. This same recycling approach has created a legion of brand loyalists for Hewlett-Packard printer cartridges.

Opportunities to win new customers abound when you look at the consumer as both a shopper and a product user.

- Jim George, Editor in Chief

If you were to put a face to the packaging at Costco, it may be that of Scott Carnie, General Manager of Costco Wholesale’s East Coast packaging operations in Monroe, NJ.

Thanks in part to his efforts, the company’s packaging is a spectrum of colorful formats and innovation. A key color in Costco’s packaging palette is green, as in environmentally friendly.

Costco produces many of its own packages. Three recent examples:

· Costco launched its Kirkland Signature by Borghese private-label line of cosmetics (see www.packworld.com/go/view-21016).

· In September, Costco introduced a five- product line of Lexmark print cartridges in new packaging. The carded blister pack addresses theft and is eco-friendly. The packaging is Natralock™ material from MeadWestvaco, and it reduces the amount of plastics used while also making the product accessible. The clear plastic thermoform is molded of RPET. Costco thermoforms the recycled PET using tooling it made and heat-seals the products in the folded paperboard card.

· Costco is debuting an interesting take on Microsoft Xbox 360 packaging. It’s a large package that has appeared at Sam’s, but is adapted with a new design (see photo on this screen). Two thermoforms contain the game system and components and are wrapped within an outer frame of corrugated. Polypropylene strapping holds the frame together to provide closure for the corrugated and deter theft.

- By Rick Lingle, Packaging World

If China’s urban consumer, also known as “Chuppies,” are on the radar for your brand, new consumer research from United Parcel Service may help you to define your target. Small and mid-sized product companies “need to set themselves apart from their competition and from the large multi-nationals, and market to a very specific niche,” Says Kevin McConnell, Senior Partner at O’Connell and Co., which handles general business matters in China.

UPS surveyed 1,200 consumers, and following are key findings:

· Moisturizer is the most attractive American beauty product to Chinese consumers; 73% say they are likely to purchase it in the coming year.

· 85% of Chinese consumers say that quality is critical in their purchase decision for imported products.

· Younger Chinese consumers are more open to purchasing U.S. products than their older counterparts.

Chinese consumers also have packaging preferences for U.S. products. High-income consumers prefer American or Western-style packaging, especially for beauty products. And 28% of consumers prefer blue packaging for American products, nearly double the next color choice-white, at 16%. In gift packaging, men like blue and black while women are partial to red and white.

Older Chinese consumers are more attached to Chinese icons on packaging. Younger consumers want to see company logos.

Chinese consumers rely on professional experts to deliver ad messages.