Can design help bring a 20% to 25% sales premium at retail over competing brands?

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.

Take a look around your product category for the true leaders.

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."

What are the differences in packaging design between the U.S. and Europe?

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.

Why do we indulge the clearly undesirable tendency to create "me-too" products with mundane packaging to match? Recently, I came across some interesting perspectives.

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.

As a child, I loved being the first person in my family to break through the seal of any new package. It was a constant battle between my little sister and I that soon became a parental bargaining tool to separate and reward us. Be it pushing a spoon through the seal under a jar's lid, zipping open a foil pouch, or pouring that first cascade of corn flakes from the box, there was something special about that moment.

A number of "attitude" beverages have been entering the market lately, and a new one demonstrates the power of the bottle and label working together. Melbourne, Australia-based Hazardous Fluids Pty. Ltd. is rolling out Sportsdrink + Bodily Fluids in the U.S. as an isotonic supplement drink designed for athletes participating in motor and power sports.

"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.

When LypSyl, a 100-year-old Swedish lip-balm brand, debuted in the U.S., Lornamead Inc. tweaked product formulations and rolled out enticing and functional packaging.

If fresh research is to be believed, more than 50% of U.S. consumers claim they would surrender all forms of convenience packaging if doing so would benefit the environment.

What is the role of product packaging, given the fast-changing face of retailing and consumer demand now?

Know your consumer—and even those who aren't your consumers. That has been a recurring theme among branding and marketing professionals whose thoughts have graced Shelf Impact!

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.

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

—Henri Matisse

How much weight does the sustainability factor carry with consumers?

You've got limited education budget and time, yet you want the essential information about trends driving packaging that gets results with today's demanding retailers and consumers. If this describes you, Shelf Impact!'s Package Design Workshops are just for you.

I recently struck up a conversation with a manager at a company that helps some major U.S. marketers produce consumer packaged products. Steps for integrating sustainability initiatives are wonderful, this manager said, but they quickly can break down in the "silo" mentality that's still prevalent at so many companies today.

About 70% of brand marketers launched new innovations or line extensions and 44% repositioned their brands in 2007. But marketers also say in a new survey that their main regret of 2007 was failing to invest more effort into understanding what makes their customers tick.

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.

One bottle shape, more than any other, has managed to not only differentiate itself from the pack but also to cross category boundaries to represent purity in products as diverse as dish soaps, high-end whiskeys, and perfumes. Remarkable!

“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.

Valerie Jacobs makes her living by helping consumer product companies identify and capitalize on consumer trends, and the Director of Trend Analysis at LPK notes a rise in the number of “natural” products. Not in the sense of natural versus organic, but natural as a barometer of aesthetic enjoyment.

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.

With this issue, Shelf Impact! begins a more inclusive era in dissecting the marketing strategies and trends driving packaging decisions today.

Instead of working strictly from a packaging brief, Stuart Leslie, President of 4sight Inc., New York City, favors a more direct approach with consumers to satisfy their unmet needs, as he discusses in this chat with Shelf Impact!

With consumer markets fragmenting into ever-smaller niches, the need to understand who your consumers are and what motivates them to purchase has never been more important. You can learn about the latest research and strategy development approaches in use today at the ninth annual Proof: Market Research & Strategy Development for Package Design conference.

You also had plenty to say about the following topic: Does your design process integrate graphic branding with structural functionality, or do you consider aesthetics of secondary importance?

How do you sell the value of design to senior management? What do you look for when selecting a design firm? Senior managers from five of the nation’s leading consumer packaged goods companies discussed these two topics in a panel discussion at the Fuse: Brand Identity and Package Design Conference in April in New York. Panelists were:

Claudia Kotchka is a 29-year veteran at Procter & Gamble. As Vice President of Design Innovation and Strategy, her job is to “build design into P&G’s DNA.”

Suave’s redesign shows that cost savings don’t have to compromise consumer wants.

Last month, we also asked for your thoughts on this question: Do new packages tend to originate through the supply chain (push) or through consumer/retailer demand (pull)? Why, and has the point of origin changed from five years ago? Your answers were split about evenly between push and pull. Here are some of your responses.

Many of you had interesting answers to another question we asked: What do you think about when justifying whether a different package structure makes sense for the product you are working on?

By changing the label, store chain maintains local appeal of coffee brand ’ s small batches

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.

Drawing inspiration from brand of yesteryear is now the future

Mike Payne is Director of Snack Food Packaging at Masterfoods USA, Hackettstown, NJ. In a recent conversation with Shelf Impact!, he discusses innovation and trends in packaging structures.

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

Just when packaging was making major marketing inroads, along comes sustainable packaging. While terms such as shelf impact, "First Moment of Truth" (FMOT), and sustainable packaging are not mutually exclusive, they are not in total alignment either.

Popular thinking among today’s package-creation teams is that the package must work for the consumer as both shopper and user of the product.

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

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 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.

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.

By Terri Goldstein, Strategy Principal, and Missy Anapolsky, Chief Creative Officer The Goldstein Group

Package design solutions can deliver brands that fulfill consumers’ inmost desires; reaffirm their values or a feeling of achieved aspirational status, a sense of enjoyment, and a growing relationship. These elements satisfy deep emotional needs. Therefore, brands that embody the lifestyle the consumer has, or aspires to, resonate strongly because consumers identify with them at the deepest level.

In recent televised interviews, separate groups of progressive younger children were shown logos or icons of some of the country’s best-know brands. As the moderator displayed cards Showing each image, she asked the children sitting before her to respond with the name of the brand.

Sustainability is fast becoming a hot area of focus for many consumer packaged goods companies. One of every two respondents to a Shelf Impact! survey in June and July 2006 indicated their package-development process now includes sustainability initiatives--typically using biodegradable and recyclable materials, and reducing the amount of packaging used.

Final registration is being taken for the 8th annual “Proof: Market Research & Development For Package Design” conference, Sept. 25-27, 2006, at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.

Consumers strongly prefer glass for beer and liquor. The ‘cold threshold’ makes plastic ideal for water but not for beer. Soda lovers are divided on packaging choice.

For brands that have earned icon status, the single most powerful marketing tool is an identity that synthesizes authenticity and relevance.

If we keep our eyes open, the belief goes, consumer trends will point to opportunities. Given new research on consumer perceptions of “green” marketing, can this commonly held belief possibly be true in packaged goods?

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

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.

Lebanon Seaboard is the top-selling brand in lawn and garden supplies, yet the company decided to survey consumers for their perceptions of the brand. The results told Lebanon Seaboard that the package had shortcomings in consumers’ minds and would require structural modifications. Among consumers’ observations:

If you want to sharpen the techniques that prove the value of your package design through market research, plan to attend 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.

Last month, Shelf Impact! also asked readers this question: “From a creative perspective, what is the reason, most often, that new packaging initiatives fail?” Here are some of the most thoughtful answers we received:

The ClearRX pharmacy bottle introduced at Target has won rave reviews from both consumers and pharmacists for its ease of use. Through color-coded rings on the bottles and easy-to-read labels with a logical hierarchy of information, weighted visually by importance, consumers know which bottle in the medicine cabinet is theirs, and how much medication to take and when.

Marketers should focus packaging communications on consumer product uses rather than ingredients, features, and price.

Online marketing and emerging media experts lay out strategies for captivating the experiential consumer in an increasingly interactive world.

If you believe in the adage “innovate or die,” you may want to look at personal care products for survival ideas. This “lifestyle” category is very personal to consumers, who are pushing marketers to provide customized packages that seem “just for them” and target consumer niches within the category.

Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. has found an innarvative way to help consumers protect the environment by using packaging. Its flexible-film bags of Scotts' lawn fertilizer educate consumers on how to properly apply the product by following the label directions.

Based on input from environmental groups and the company's consumer research, Scotts Miracle-Gro has added best- practice application instructions on more than 35 million bags of its Turf Builder@ brand of fertilizer products. The company features the messages on the top of the back panel of its fertilizer bags.

Do you gather consumer data using the more passive methods of 20 years ago? If so, that can make package innovation difficult, says Brendan Light, Vice President of Research and Strategy at BuzzBack, a market research firm. Light led an engaging session on the topic at a conference in New York called "Fuse: Brand Identity & Package Design." Discussions on innovation took center stage.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

Ethnographic research is a technique that is fast gaining favor for providing reliable insights about how consumers view and use products. In simplest terms, ethnography is the study of human behavior in its natural environment.

Global wine producer and marketer E&J Gallo Winery, Modesto, CA, often uses ethnography as a prelude to package-design projects. Melinda Wooten, Manager of Consumer Research, told an audience at the recent Market Research & Development for Package Design conference in Chicago that ethnography helps the winery to increase brand performance, examine consumer insights for new-brand development, and explore alternative packaging possibilities.

“Lovemark” just may supplant experiential branding as a marketing buzzword. Whereas experiential branding involves creating a brand with a unique emotional connection with a consumer, a lovemark is all about how you create that connection.

Marcia Roosevelt is Executive Vice President at Saatchi & Saatchi, which coined the term lovemark. With 20 years in new product development, she has come to believe that brands win consumers by creating a deep, meaningful relationship with them. Roosevelt contends that many brand managers have failed in the relationship game.

Company works closely with educators to develop graphing calculators. Equal attention is paid to packaging that will close the sale.

At Texas Instruments, the Educational & Productivity Solutions (E&PS) business faces the same pressure to increase sales as any of TI’s other entities. But E&PS also operates under two special constraints:

1. A key selling season takes place during a compressed time period—the back-to-school time frame—when shelf clutter dominates retail stores.

One axiom in consumer products marketing today is this: Know your consumer. Be honest now. How well do you, really?

Perhaps you noticed our survey results in the September issue of Shelf Impact! The good news is that 69% of the 200-plus readers who responded said they observe or talk to consumers in retail stores about their packaging likes and dislikes at least one to five times each year. Many of you interact with consumers more than 10 times annually.

Conversely, 16% said you talk to consumers less than once a year and 15% reported that you never talk to them.

Just how well do you really know your consumer? What compels them to pick up your product? Whether they believe your brand is contemporary or dated? Credible or untrustworthy?

Great packaging comes from understanding consumers’ unarticulated needs, says Paul Baker, Manager of Packaging Innovation at Masterfoods USA. A focus group won’t necessary given you this feedback. Consider sending your branding and marketing departments out to participate in consumer research so they understand how consumers use products and related issues that affect package design, Baker says.

Effective consumer product marketers cut through the shelf clutter by building brand strategies that tap into consumers’ “I”—individuality—attitude. They understand who the consumer is in all aspects of life.

Engaging consumers at this level requires an ethnographic approach—observation in their actual environment—to find the right communication cues. Let’s look at how one Johnson & Johnson brand has unearthed and stroked the “I” attitude.

Links: IDI
Seaquist Closures

Consumers identified two frustrations with traditional, round mayonnaise jars. First, the glass can break. Second, the opening is too small.

Kraft Foods answers both concerns with a 32-oz blow-molded PET jar. Stemming from research conducted by IDI, Kraft selected an oval shape, which consumers prefer over a round jar. Seaquist Closures provides the snap-top closure. From a marketing perspective, the oval shape provides more front-panel “real estate” than a round jar for the wraparound paper label.

Other pluses: The new jar improves shelf density, reduces case size, and is stackable.

To differentiate your brand from the competition, it is best to visually “own” the dimension—it could be “attitude”—that ties most directly to the end benefit, such as ease-of-use or sophistication.

— Scott Young, President, Perception Research Services

Share your marketing insights with your peers. Contact Jim George, 630/897-7158 or george@packworld.com.

During three years of research, General Electric found that it pays to understand how consumers shop your brand and your product category. These insights helped GE develop a new packaging and branding program that takes the guesswork out of selecting its bulbs. The redesigned packaging:

• Eliminates consumer confusion at the point-of-sale by displaying lighting products according to how consumers understand them rather than by technology.

• Identifies a clear best-application message for each style of bulb, avoiding “tekkie” explanations while making correct product selection easier.

GE now has opportunities to “upsell” consumers toward its higher-quality bulbs and increase sales, says Robert Stuart, General Manager of Consumer Lighting.

The new packaging holds the consumer’s hand in many ways. It leverages color and a “quality of light” scale using boxes to distinguish between products across GE’s range of bulbs. Each sub-brand name carries a number, such as “Edison 50,” to indicate the wattage. The bulb shape and a line drawing of its corresponding lighting fixture help anchor the front panel.

After a long design incubation, Pepsi-Cola relaunched its Mug brand of root beer with a new label designed to appeal to both teen boys and their mothers who buy soft drinks for them.

The result? A 3% increase in sales of the brand.

The old packaging design centered on an illustration of a drink mug with foam running over the top. Pepsi marketers, however, identified a mid-teens boy as the target for Mug root beer.

Q: Consumers say they are not willing to pay for more package benefits. How can we identify benefits consumers will pay for?

A: It’s true that consumers won’t pay for simply “more” benefits. But, they will pay more for the right benefits. How do we determine which benefits are most valuable, and by how much?

First, look to uncover and stratify the product attributes that really matter to consumers, both perceptually and in use. Clever research tools help. Is it on-the-go eating? Low mess? Easy sharing? Freshness? That will give you a sense for what kinds of value the new features have to deliver on through packaging. Then, understand how all products in the category perform on these attributes. Identify gaps. Concept development should address the target attributes, or what we call Innovation Platforms.

Bob Connolly, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Consumer Communications at Wal-Mart Stores Inc., dispels a belief among some marketers and packaging suppliers that there’s a “code to crack” in getting products on the retailer’s shelves. Connolly says success is possible by concentrating instead on four areas of prime importance to Wal-Mart and its shoppers.

• Ready, Set, Go!

Time is the new currency for consumers. Both Wal-Mart and its shoppers want packaging that saves them time. From Wal-Mart’s that means tactics such as time-saving secondary packaging. One example: PDQ product trays, which set up quickly and minimize waste that needs discarding. For consumers, it means packaging communication that lets them understand your brand message and select a product within six seconds.