Research shows that Canada consumers are adopting a ‘Pick’n’Pack’ meal approach. Frito-Lay’s new multipacks respond with variety and portion control.

From the GrabPack to the PortaBottle, new options are giving marketers more branding opportunities while also providing consumer convenience and eco-friendliness.

If you really want to know how and why consumers purchase and use your product, Heather Maxwell recommends holding these discussions “in context.” By doing so, you can make more informed decisions in package design.

The Wrigley Co. is touting portability and convenience with its new 15-stick gum package. The compact carton, called Slim Pack™, is designed to fit on-the-go lifestyles. It is the new packaging for the company's five Wrigley brands, as well as for its new Extra Fruit Sensations line of four fruit-flavored gum varieties.

What could be easier for coffee or tea consumers than tear, tip, stir, and sip?

Shape and functional convenience are two key benefits that give Dead Down Wind Scent Prevent Field Spray shelf distinction and an edge at the point of use.

A streamlined PET bottle for Kraft Foods' 50-plus salad dressings achieves a 19% reduction in weight over the previous packaging and also provides multiple consumer conveniences.

GE Caulk Singles are replacing squeeze tubes and caulk guns for convenient, on-the-go application.

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.

Coca-Cola is bringing more convenience to the beverage aisle with a resealable 500-mL aluminum can for its Burn energy drink.

Land O'Lakes is expanding distribution for its butter brand while also marketing more directly to today's smaller households by reconfiguring the packaging.

HP believes that the consumer's first interactions with a new product are so critical that the company's packaging department has a "user experience designer."

Today's savvy consumers have a wealth of information at their fingertips. The Internet provides some of the most in-depth analysis and reviews of almost anything offered in the marketplace -including new products and packaging.

"If you've ever searched a cluttered cabinet for one elusive spice and felt as if you are conducting an archeological dig, then you're ready for 'spice enlightenment,'" say Katie Luber and Sara Engram, self-proclaimed "cardaMoms" and Founders of TSP Spices Inc., Atlanta, GA.

Editor's note: With this issue, we welcome Robert Croft, a design industry veteran with a gift for seeing "what could be," and the ability to translate those ideas into workable, visual packaging concepts. His What if... columns will publish periodically in Shelf Impact!'s e-newsletter and in printed inserts of Shelf Impact! in Packaging World magazine.

Here's a clever design in pouched microwavable heat-and-serve sauces and gravies. Royco sauces, from Master Foods, a division of Mars, in South Africa, are packaged in retorted pouches. Before microwave heating, the consumer snips the pouch corner for venting and pouring.

Home-meal replacement moves a notch higher in Sweden with environmentally friendly trays on ready-made meals from Gunnar Dafgard AB. Billy's Lasagne chilled meals come in molded wood-pulp packaging.

In the hardware business, Elmer's Wood Glue is No. 1 in market share. Celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, Elmer's Products Inc., Columbus, OH, decided the brand needed to look more contemporary to support its reputation as a reliable product.

Over time, a brand can become "dated," and BeautiControl Inc., Carrollton, TX, reached that point with its 15-year-old Skinlogics Lip Apeel line. The company updated the brand with custom packaging that also responds to consumer complaints about products that dry out.

Consumers long have expressed frustration with the mess that comes with opening, closing, and handling bacon packaging. Oscar Mayer takes a corrective step with its StayFresh Reclosable Tray.

Sustainability is driving the excess from packaging materials, energy use, and waste. The challenge for brand owners will be to improve product protection and shelf impact while also using materials and technologies that lessen packaging's environmental impact.

A clever garden-spray-hose delivery system and a striking shrink-sleeve label give distinction to The Scotts Co.'s multipacks of Miracle-Gro LiquaFeed All Purpose Plant Food.

The no-mix, no-measure product and packaging heighten consumer convenience by minimizing steps during product use. A plant food hose feeding adapter (sold separately) has one screw-thread aperture that connects to the hose. A second aperture attaches to the top of the opened bottle. Water and plant food blend within the adapter for delivery through the feeding spray nozzle.

Nine-color rotogravure printing enriches the polyvinyl chloride sleeves around the 16-oz bottles. Fort Dearborn Co. provides the sleeves.

"LiquaFeed has been the most successful new product launch in the history of our company," says Carlos Hernandez, Scotts Marketing Director. "The innovative packaging design is an important part of the product's success."

Suggested retail price is $9.99 for a four-pack and $5.99 for a two-pack.

Purchases made at hardware, home-improvement, and automotive stores usually are planned, measured transactions. Wrench Mints, from the Los Angeles, CA-based company of the same name, attempts to break the mold and bring impulse buying to those store channels with a tin-plate container of breath fresheners.

Shape works with the Wrench Mints brand name to sell the product. Both the tin-plate container and the mints resemble the look of a wrench. Eddy Rubin, President and CEO of Wrench Mints, conceived the idea for the product and packaging.

Holding 35 to 42 miniature mints, the silver container is manufactured by an unnamed company in Hong Kong. The pack measures 3.7" x 1.5" x 0.45" and has a suggested retail price of $1.99. After the mints are gone, the container doubles as a holder for hardware fasteners such as nails and screws.

The mints have been introduced in the Peppermint and Cinnamon varieties, with more on the way this year.

A common consumer complaint in bakery products is that the containers are often awkward to carry. Frequently the cartons risk collapse or bend and damage the delicate bakery goods inside unless consumers balance the package in their hands as they carry it.

“Touchpoints” is a term that’s become popular in marketing and packaging jargon, and I’ve discussed it previously in this space. There are two definitions. In marketing vernacular, touchpoints describe each occasion a brand marketer communicates a brand message to a consumer.

While its Peter Pan brand of peanut butter was on hiatus because of a voluntary product recall due to salmonella contamination, ConAgra Foods, Omaha, NE, used the time to make plant renovations to restore product safety. In addition, the company relaunched Peter Pan with a packaging makeover intended to help restore the brand’s former luster.

The package includes a new jar shape, a wider mouth opening, and added graphic elements on the label, including yellow lettering over a gradient blue swoosh that boldly states “New Look!”
“The label colors have been enhanced with more ‘pop,’” says ConAgra’s Stephanie Moritz. “We also took the opportunity to include on the right side of the label an icon that depicts our 100% satisfaction guarantee.”

Packaging improvements include a more tapered jar for easier handling and a wider mouth that enables consumers to scoop peanut butter more easily from the container.

Initially, the Creamy and Crunchy varieties are available, packaged in 18-, 28-, and 40-oz PET jars. Other varieties will be available in early 2008.

So you come home from the store with a new toy for your child’s birthday. You know exactly what it looks like because you can see it through the package. You were actually able to play with it at the store in the package to see if it was “cool enough” and the right level for your child. The clear all-plastic thermoformed sealed clamshell package allowed you to touch various controls on the toy through strategically designed slots. The high visibility functional pack has significantly enhanced the shopping experience and aided the purchase decision, all without opening the package. When your child unwraps the present he or she can get a good feel if they like it or not by playing with it (at least to a degree) through the package.

Plastic containers with handles have recently elevated convenience in the sugar aisle, which has been home to paper sacks for decades. In Canada, here is how another marketer improves convenience in sugar packaging.

Tate & Lyle Canada Ltd., Toronto, markets Redpath Half, a sweetener, in widemouth paperboard/foil composite cans from Sonoco. The cans hold either 210 g or 400 g of sugar and are made of 100% recycled paperboard with a high-barrier foil liner that locks out moisture and oxygen and keeps the granular sweetener free of clumps.

A tabbed, peelable membrane serves as both a security and freshness barrier, and adheres to the can rim.

Graphics feature gravure-printed labels.

Organic Valley, LaFarge, WI, has found an innovative way to extend its brand reach and bring the healthful benefits of milk to the ballpark. The dairy packages about 8 oz of milk in aseptic cartons for distribution at Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton, WI, during baseball games of the minor league Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.

"The milk cartons are easy for kids to open, carry, and consume, which is one less thing for parents to worry about while enjoying the action during the game," says Ryan Grossman, Timber Rattlers Food and Beverage Manager.

Milk is packaged in Tetra Pak's Prisma Aseptic® recyclable, single-serve cartons. The milk does not need constant refrigeration. All that's required for consumption is chilling the milk a few hours before service.

Increased competition for space in refrigerated cases at grocery stores is shifting product marketers' focus toward food packaging that can deliver a long, ambient shelf life elsewhere in the store. French food manufacturer William Saurin believes it has a solution with its new range of ambient pâtés in innovative thermoformed packaging.

Betta Foods, an Australian manufacturer of ice cream cones and specialty confectionery products, is adding convenience to candy packaging with a resealable zipper on its Natural Real Fruit Flavored Liquorice AllSorts and Liquorice Bullets varieties.

Plastic containers with handles have recently elevated convenience in the sugar aisle, which has been home to paper sacks for decades. In Canada, here is how another marketer improves convenience in sugar packaging.

Mintel spots two products that make geographic considerations the focal point of product and packaging development.

Demand is growing globally for health-in-a-bottle products—those sold in daily dose formats on the basis of health claims, as a segment of the umbrella category of products that help maintain intestinal health. Marketers are introducing more health-in-a-bottle products as consumers appear increasingly interested in looking after various aspects of their well-being by consuming a health drink each day.

Are you looking to break away from the clutter? Consider challenging conventional wisdom and surprise consumers of your product. So says Minda Gralnek. As Vice President and Creative Director for Target Stores, she leads a design team that challenges the conventional image of discount retailing.

Matt Dudas, a loyal reader of Shelf Impact! and a 17-year veteran in package structure, poses an interesting question. Why, in some product categories, does packaging innovation come only after tragedy strikes, he asks.

In South Korea supermarkets, Daesang, a food marketer, has re- launched its Daesang-brand luncheon meat and pork products in rectangular two-piece aluminum cans closed with an Easy Peel® end, designed by Impress.

“ 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.

From tamper evidence to production protection to designs with flair, these packages are the real deal.

The emphasis on convenience drives so many food packaging decisions today, and it may have a greater influence on the packages we see in the future than anything else out there. The following are new examples in the battle for shelf supremacy in convenience packaging:

Laminate bags intensify the visual appeal, aiming to stimulate category growth

Shelf Impact! also asked you last month to list, from a marketing and branding perspective, what will be the key “hot topics” for packaging in 2007. Sustainability and packaging materials and processes that protect the environment came up very strong. Here are some of your other answers.

The Wm. Wrigley Co. challenged its Marketing Department to increase consumption among loyalists of the company’s Eclipse chewing gum.

Great packages require at least 18 months, but economic pressure too often speeds up the design. Approach innovation as a cross-functional process, two gurus say.

A demographic tidal wave of aging boomers is set to befall consumer packaged goods companies (CPGs) and package designers. As a result, you've been reading articles about topics like ease of use, designing for aging consumers' needs and universal design (we outlined universal-design philosophy in the January/February 2006 issue of Shelf Impact!). What techniques are available to help brand managers, marketers, and package designers design and test packages that aging consumers will receive well?

Considering that the venerable bar code’s first commercial packaging application predates the Korean War, one would think the printed zebra stripes are about as cutting-edge as ring-pull tabs on two-piece steel cans.

The “Wal-Mart” effect is making its influence felt in case-ready meat, shifting the nature of meat shopping to fit its one-stop shopping convenience platform. Wal-Mart’s success with this packaging format may prompt other high-volume retailers, as well as grocery stores, to offer more convenience products in case-ready meat.

A study from management consultant Kline & Co. says this trend will result in a 6% increase in the use of high-barrier packaging films over the next several years as retailers continue to decrease the “footprint” in their stores for fresh meat while increasing their offerings of case-ready, marinated and nearly ready-to-eat meat selections. These convenience-oriented prepared foods eliminate steps in meal preparation for busy consumers.

“Wal-Mart has been a tremendous force in case-ready meat retailing,” says Sharon Derbyshire with Kline Research. “They really want to stock this product much like they do consumer goods—get individual packages in, put them in the bins, and sell them.”

In the facial tissue wars, packaging is increasingly emphasizing convenience with a focus on the car. According to Mintel’s Global New Products Database, which has identified this trend, a new round of convenience packaging either enables the driver to grab a tissue more easily or the packaging is slimmer and more discreet in size to fit into a car cup-holder. A new focus of attention with convenience-size packaging is the storage well in the car door.

The following packages reflect this trend:

• In Canada, Irving Tissue markets tissue under the Royale brand that comes packaged in a plastic, cup-holder-friendly container. The container’s snap-off lid provides the convenience of refills. The container’s 50 two-ply tissues dispense through a hole in the lid. The container carries a suggested U.S. retail price of $1.45.

Glidden raises the bar in value-added paint packaging with a polypropylene Quick Roll container. The container permits do-it-yourselfers to mix, paint, and store paint in a single container.

The 1.85-gal tub-like container, from Superfos, is slightly smaller than competing 2.5-gal paint cans, increasing user convenience on ladders. Quick Roll, carrying a suggested retail price of $30, requires a four-step process:

1. Stirring the paint thoroughly in the container.

2. Dipping a roller in the paint at the open end of the container.

3. Rolling away excess paint on the grid inside the container. Unused paint drips through gaps in the grid and back into the container.

4. Start painting.

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.

Link: Tetra Pak International USA

Canisters of Whims cookies, from Pepperidge Farm, taper from a wide base and give the package a different shape in the cookie aisle. The canister’s shape and recloseable top make the package suitable for on-the-go snacking.

Carol Degener, Director of Innovation at Pepperidge Farm, says the container provides merchandising flexibility. The container may be displayed either on its overcap or upside-down on its base. Graphics are printed in different directions on both primary canister panels to accommodate either type of display.

Sonoco supplies the container, membrane, and overcap. The container includes an inner foil barrier layer laminated to a 15-pt SBS board reverse-printed in flexo in seven colors.

Link: Sonoco

On packages of Kraft Foods’ Chewy Chips Ahoy! soft chocolate chip cookies, graphics signal the convenience of operating Kraft’s Snack ’n Seal resealable packaging. A large portion of the pack’s top may be peeled open to withdraw cookies, then resealed for freshness and on-the-go convenience.

Jeanine Maresca, Chips Ahoy! Brand Manager, says AC Nielsen in-home research determined that consumers want more convenient snack packages. The Chewy Chips Ahoy! package responds to this desire with 15-oz packs with a suggested retail price of $3.99.

NSI Sweeteners makes its dispensing bottles of its Necta Sweet Sugar Substitute easier to operate by introducing a Flapper closure from Weatherchem. The cap opens halfway and its small lip enables consumers to dispense one or two tablets at a time.

Another improvement in the redesigned package is a lift-and-peel flap on the induction-sealed TE foil liner. Consumers with limited manual dexterity can grasp it easily.

The PET bottle’s polypropylene cap comes from Berlin Packaging. Richmark Label prints the paper label flexo in four colors.

Links: Berlin Packaging
Weatherchem Corp.

Sherwin-Williams Co. has leveraged its reputation as a packaging innovator in paint with the Ready to Roll “project-sized” container for its Dutch Boy brand. With a built-in roller tray and an easy-open lid, the container eliminates the step of pouring paint into a tray prior to painting.

This saves time in both set-up and cleanup, says Adam Chafe, Dutch Boy Vice President of Marketing. Consumers told the company in testing that the Ready to Roll container was both easier and neater to use than conventional paint cans.

The container holds 2.5 gallons of paint.

Easy-opening, storage convenience, and shelf distinction come to bacon packaging with a reclosable zipper and contoured bag for Farmer John Quick Serve, from Farmer John Meats/Clougherty Packing Co. Los Angeles.

An EZ Peel strip below the hermetic seal provides opening without a knife or scissors. The bag’s laminated structure includes a semi-rigid bottom web. Refrigerated product shelf life is 90 days. Curwood supplies the bag’s barrier film and Zip-Pak provides the reclosable zipper.

The contoured packages offer retailers merchandising flexibility as either stand-up bags or pegboard-hanging bags.

Links: Curwood Inc. │ Zip-Pak

Con Agra Foods converted its prepared pasta dishes to easy-open ends on metal cans in late summer 2003, and dollar sales rose 11.2% in the six months after the launch—at the same time that category-wide sales fell 6.8%.

A year later, Con Agra’s share of the single-serve prepared pasta category had increased from 59% to 64%. What’s the lesson in this example? Convenience packaging sells.

Mona Doyle wants brand managers and package designers to know this: The price you pay in goodwill and sales for packaging that consumers perceive as undesirable could get even higher.

Doyle is President of The Consumer Network and her Philadelphia company’s new, 137-page report based on surveys of 475 shoppers across the U.S. finds that many packages still have a long way to go to become ”user friendly.”

Shoppers rated packaging friendliness or unfriendliness—those that are easy to use and understand—in 78 product categories and other classifications. Among the findings:

• Consumers believe the most user-friendly packaging lies in liquid soap and ready-to-eat (pre-cut) fruit.

• They found packaging generally unfriendly in small electronics, athletic supplies, carded capsules, cosmetics, and health-testing kits.

Links: Libby Perszyk Kathman
Schawk
Fort Dearborn
Silgan Closures

Red Gold’s Tuttorosso brand of canned tomatoes enjoys a loyal following among older cooks who prepare authentic Italian pasta sauce from scratch. To extend the brand to younger consumers who don’t cook, Red Gold, Elwood, IN, leveraged old-world Italian visual cues in a new label introducing a new product, Tuttorosso Original Italian Recipe Pasta Sauce. Rich colors and the right graphics signal “authentic Italian” to consumers who have a discerning palate and want a ready-made pasta sauce.

Link: DuPont Packaging Solutions
Labeling Systems Inc.

Single-serve, portable packaging expands in produce with DuPont Packaging Solutions’ own brand, Sweet ‘N Easy grape tomatoes, in a single-serve, thermoformed polyester container. DuPont wants to leverage the brand to improve packaging through “intellectual property sharing” for broader impact. On-the-go portability comes through a snap-fit top, hinged for easy reclosure. The container fits in a cup-holder, and the film labels are applied by a machine from Labeling Systems Inc.

With a retail price of $1.99 to $3.99, the package is in multiple test markets.

The right package structure can help build incremental sales opportunities for a product when brand managers know how consumers use their product and they leverage that knowledge in creating new “touchpoints” with consumers.

The best packages consider needs throughout the value chain, and Pittsburgh Brewing Co.’s “Rack Pack” is a recent example of another package that succeeds. An innovative plastic-ring carrier allows a dozen 12-oz beverage cans to be joined together by one ring in a 2x6 configuration.

The ring, from ITW Hi-Cone, is made of a proprietary blend that includes low-density polyethylene. Previously, carrier rings held six cans in a 2x3 arrangement.