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.

Innovation, sustainability, and global issues will be among the focuses of the fourth annual Packaging Summit Expo and Conference.

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.

In Germany, Lambertz gains elegance on the store shelf with ebony-colored, rounded-corner tins for its premium Best Selection brand of chocolate biscuits. With a crackle finish, the tins emulate the look of rich leather.

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.

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.

A new book breaks through the clutter to offer practical strategies, tactics, and resources to jump-start your sustainable packaging program. Included are case histories and interviews with leading corporations that have adopted environmental stewardship programs.

Pouches, PET, and aluminum packages are taking their place alongside glass as wine continues to innovate new traditions.

The promise of smart packaging has always been impressive. Now, at last, some pretty intriguing commercial applications are starting to surface. There's More. Click to continue reading "Smart packaging—lessons in enhanced functionality"

“Manifesting brand essence through packaging is powerful at retail,” declares Ron Pence, Pepsi Senior Marketing Manager for packaging innovation. The Pepsi brand reflects youth and vitality, and those virtues shine through on its new 20-oz bottle for the U.S. market.

In order to be truly effective, packaging has to literally deliver the heart and soul of the brand in a way that forges strong, emotive connections with the consumer. The days of delivering a hierarchy of features and benefits on packaging in a dry manner, sans emotion, are over. But where do emotive cues come from?

Over the years, in writing about the business of branding and design, I’ve found that some companies consistently develop products and packaging systems that truly hit home with consumers. One trait that these companies often share is the good fortune of having a top dog who understands the intoxicating power of design and actively nurtures it at all levels within the company’s culture.

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:

Why, in product categories like OTC drugs, does packaging innovation seem to occur only after tragedy strikes? This was explored in our April 2007 issue, and it brought the following response from Bob Nall, Vice President of Packaging Design for Mattel Toys’ Boys Division:

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.

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.

For a marketer of household products such as Colgate- Palmolive, it ’ s critical to keep water from getting into a packaging system prematurely to activate the product before the consumer uses it.

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? This month, Shelf Impact! continues its discussion with 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.

A solid ball of detergent, Oxi Clean “Toss-n-Go” is no ordinary laundry product. Its packaging, a thermoformed clamshell inside a conical paperboard sleeve, is equally innovative. Amid the ever-so-predictable jugs and cartons in the detergent aisle, brand owner Church & Dwight’s conical sleeve packaging with the protruding ball in the front really stands out.

Back in 2000, a new term found its way into branding lexicon. We had entered the “design economy.” Time magazine painted an elegant portrait in describing it as “the crossroads where prosperity and technology meet culture and marketing.”

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.

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

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.

Rapid changes in packaging formats are essential today. A new report provides winning strategies that get marketing
and operations working together.

In September, Shelf Impact! also asked readers the following question. From a packaging perspective, how do you define the term “innovative”? Fifty-two readers responded, and here is what some of you had to say:

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.

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.

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.

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

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:

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:

Last month, Shelf Impact! also asked readers this question: “As mass-media audiences become more fragmented, what unexplored opportunities do you see for packaging the brands you work on?” Here are some of your responses.

If there’s a word that’s overused in marketing and design circles when it comes to packaging, the word is “innovative.” I recently had a telephone conversation with Roy Parcels who, as a designer for decades, knows a thing or two about the relative place in history of any purportedly innovative package.

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.

Moët Hennessey wanted a high-end ice bucket to showcase three popular sizes of Moët champagne and tie into the color theme that the brand uses in advertising. In addition, the champagne marketer wanted its three packages displayed at the right height to highlight the brand while also providing the proper amount of ice for chilling each bottle size.

Hennessey achieved these objectives with an ice bucket bearing a false bottom that enables it to properly display the splits-, regular 750 mL-, and magnum-sized bottles of champagne in ice by rotating the bottle into different slot positions in the bucket.

I’ve had several recent conversations with managers at companies that market consumer products. In one form or another, they all basically asked the same question, namely, “Is any real packaging innovation occurring out there?”

They have plenty of company in that search.

Over the last few years, savvy companies have begun to figure out that long-term profits will elude them if they continue to cut costs within their walls. They’ve wrung out just about all the internal fat that is possible and are now shifting focus to external cost-cutting.

But in this era of continued belt tightening, the question remains: is any real packaging innovation occurring? In at least one case, the answer is yes. Read in this issue of Shelf Impact! how Pepsico created a global packaging framework for its Gatorade brand that is increasing sales.

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.

During September, Shelf Impact! asked readers this question: Has a supplier ever approached your company offering unsolicited market research and a packaging format recommendation that resulted in a new packaging project?

Fifty-six readers responded, and 36 said this approach has never occurred, in their experience. A few others were unsure whether it had ever occurred and one reader asked, “You mean that happens?”

Other readers offered these observations about their experiences with outside solicitations:

“I am beginning to see an awareness in our senior management of the need for innovative but established package design.”

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.

Metal “tins” equate to keepsake value in products from sweets to playing cards to golf balls. Germany-based Bosch Group communicates the premium positioning of its IXO power screwdriver with a custom metal package for distribution at D-I-Y retailers and other outlets in the European and Asia-Pacific markets.

The screwdriver’s packaging accomplishes several objectives. Functionally, it’s a sturdy tool-storage unit designed to reflect the product quality.

Scott Fedje, whose background includes stints in branding and design at Cole Haan, Nike, and Landor Associates, says the U.S. was a standard-bearer for package design in the 1990s, but he believes some of the inspirational energy has shifted overseas.

“I find that design is so much more inspirational where you don’t have money,” Fedje says. “In Japan, a lot of design is over the top. With the economy as strong as it is in Britain, I don’t see a lot of design that’s that exciting going on. There’s just too many dollars to be made right now in staying mainstream.”

Here are five principles to help ensure that quantitative research studies accurately gauge the impact of new packaging–and properly guide business decisions.

Principle #1: Avoid side-by-side “beauty contests.” The most important principle of effective packaging research is monadic study design. Each person sees and reacts to one system. Findings are compared across “cells” (those who saw current packaging vs. proposed packaging). This approach best simulates the introduction of packaging and accurately measures how a design change will impact attitudes and behavior.

Principle #2: Gauge visibility on the shelf. Shoppers never see at least one-third of the brands displayed in the store. PRS research also shows that being seen quickly correlates highly with purchase intent. Document what happens as shoppers encounter your packaging on the self. Let this knowledge guide major package design decisions.

Marketing is a matter of perception over product. Generally, a better-branded, -packaged and -positioned product will get you a higher return on investment (ROI).

Yet, few package development teams work from a blueprint for creating, let alone maintaining, a brand that consumers find desirable. A desired brand creates value and continuous cash flow. But without a process for getting there, new brands and repositioning efforts can fail.

Consider this eight-step process for success for developing a formal process that builds a desired brand.

1. Product and concept research. Refine you idea and show it to consumers. How do they use and purchase the product?

2. Package-check research. Have focus groups check existing branding and packaging in your category. They should identify key visual equities that will be retained and help you understand a category’s “visual vocabulary.”

3. Position and strategy. Leverage your product and package-check research to develop strategies that position your brand in the consumer’s mind. Differentiate in a meaningful way.