Procter & Gamble is extending its Downy Simple Pleasures brand with a new line of "fabric enhancers" marketed under the Radiance Collection subbrand. The three scents in the line are formulated with assistance from perfume houses and delivered through a proprietary technology that deposits microscopic capsules of perfume onto fabrics during the wash/rinse cycles.

Patrick Sbarra is President of New Creature, an in-store marketing and P-O-P display company that helps Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and their suppliers to "sell more stuff." Here, he discusses factors that are impacting in-store packaging decisions.

One strategy for creating a successful lifestyle brand focuses on a reinforced sense of well-being. One section of the store where this message can work well is household products, and a stellar recent example is WD-40's X-14 bathroom-cleaning products.

How can packaging raise the bar for exclusive salon products? By positioning them as "lifestyle brands" to drive the overall marketing strategy, both in salons and in homes. Mario Tricoci Hair Salons & Day Spas offers an engaging example of how to do it in exclusive, personal-care products.

Club-store sales have reached $115 billion and are increasing nearly 5% annually. The channel's growth presents opportunities to marketers who package their products to meet the special challenges of the club-store environment.

Guardsman is a "heritage" brand in the furniture-care products industry. The brand was founded in 1915 in Grand Rapids, MI, and Valspar Corp. wanted to make it more contemporary.

Brand managers of healthcare products are beginning to use words like "efficacy" when discussing packaging options for their products—a sign that they view packaging as more than a carrier of the product.

With color one obtains an energy that seems to stem from witchcraft.

—Henri Matisse

Mass customization is an effective way to solidify brand loyalty, and Miller Brewing Co. offers a novel idea in the beer aisle.

What better time than this holiday season to serve up some thoughts on innovation by drawing parallels to food?
Design and innovation are passions of mine, in addition to food. Among their similarities, they both require a balance of science and art, and both often end with a somewhat unexpected, truly remarkable, serendipitous outcome. The following steps provide a glimpse at some core ingredients needed to produce successful brand innovation.

Soul Critic, a flavored malt beverage, is quenching thirsts throughout Mexico with a twist in beverage packaging. A distinctive triple label maximizes visual appeal in convenience stores throughout the country.

Providing sensory perception to increase brand differentiation and add a touch of luxury to traditionally packaged products, Sleever Intl. has launched a line of faux leather-relief shrink labels. These labels join the trend of packages creating distinction through tactile surfaces that enable shoppers to “feel the quality.”

Reily Foods Co., New Orleans, LA, slow-roasts its new 100% premium Arabica coffee, marketed under the Luzianne Coffee brand, in small batches to ensure a bold taste without the bitterness typical of dark-roast coffees. The company needed the right package to reflect both quality and southern authenticity.

Coca-Cola’s goal: Reposition its Nestea brand to communicate a positioning of “feel-good freshness” to attract new consumers in the refrigerated beverages section of the store.

Hispanics have purchasing power of $860 billion, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, and all I get on my package is the translation of the words “black beans” to frijoles negros?

For Teen Everyday Skincare System skincare products, packaging is the messenger for inspirational messages and a bit of attitude.

Can a package in the self-grooming aisles really influence which product a guy buys?

“ Your packaging can ’ t be bland or you ’ ll be overlooked, ” says Valencia Wolf, Product Manager at Brown & Haley, a marketer of confectionary products. Accordingly, Brown & Haley is rolling out a composite canister for its Almond Roca ’ s Buttercrunch toffee that turns heads in club stores and protects the product.

More than half of all purchase decisions are made in the store, and clutter is the reality of the shopping experience. What should brand marketers and package designers think about to be successful in this environment? It boils down to 10 principles.

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.

In recordable disks, a commodity category, Maxell brings a new look that’s exclusive to Wal-Mart by keying on current trends in automobile culture.

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.

Link: The Bailey Group

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.

Link: O-I

How can a regional brand of honey spread gain national distribution? Position it as a healthful and less-fattening alternative to butter and cream cheese.

That’s what Mel-O Honey Inc., Cannon Falls, MN, has done. It restaged its Mel-O-Crème brand of honey spread by altering the package size and materials, and expanding the package’s available color palette to intensify taste appeal.

“We needed a new brand identity that would not only resonate in today’s market place, but also introduce new peach and raspberry SKUs,” says Curt Riess, Mel-O Honey CEO. “We needed a label that would tell consumers exactly what the product is and why they should buy it.”

Studio One Eleven designed the look of the 7-oz polypropylene tub. The container matches the size of competing low-fat/cholesterol-substitute products and places the honey spread in store coolers. The new design also:

The right color sells—or does it? Researchers attempted to get some answers recently by conducting 400 one-on-one consumer interviews at beverage coolers in South Carolina service stations. The researchers focused on one of the most often overlooked components of packaging for marketing impact—the closure.

Consumer buying preferences are significantly influenced when single-serve bottled beverages contain a clear, colored closure instead of an opaque closure, according to the study commissioned by chemical manufacturer Milliken & Co.