For package designers, the effort should go beyond looking outside of your category. It also should embrace looking in the right places outside of the store.

Great design requires a creative spark, and if you look in nontraditional areas, says strategist Lisa Bodell, you just may come up with fresh creative ideas.

‘Less is better’ may be on the verge of assuming a larger role in package design, especially in beauty aisles. Will other categories, which are lagging behind, follow suit?

Specially designed Diet Coke cans are supporting a heart-health campaign and strengthening Coca-Cola’s reputation as a supporter of special events.

Drug makers are still paying little attention to structural and graphic design. Those are areas where OTC products can cement sales and win evangelists for a brand.

Qualitative research finds that parents trust glass for its health and environment benefits. Glass also heightens their assurance about the contents within the package.

Their letter-writing campaign signals an opportunity for toymakers to make the package part of the fun. In the process, ideas may emerge to further eliminate waste.

This converted packaging format is a hit in Japan, but has received tepid response thus far in the U.S. Perhaps we’re searching for more value-added improvements.

New FreshCase is a packaging innovation designed for lovers of quality wine that is high on style, functionality and convenience.

Smaller packaging is rooted in environmental and retailer concerns. But here’s the bottom line: Smaller drives sales when consumers can rationalize it as a tiny treat.

5-Hour Energy

Living Essentials provides energy shots with vitamin supplements in a PET 2-oz bottle. A colorful shrink-sleeve label is a key marketing component of the packaging. It positions the brand as premium, justifying a retail price of $3, and also portraying the brand as aspirational with the silhouette of a runner scaling a mountain.

Y Water

Geometrically designed, copolyester 9-oz bottle appeals to elementary school children. Empty bottles can be connected, using rubber connections called “Y Knots,” as molecule-like formations, prolonging bottle life by transforming the package into a toy or building block.

Barry’s Busy Bee Pure Honey

Golden Heritage Foods leverages shape and graphic intensity in packaging with Barry’s Busy Bee Pure Honey. The honey, packed in a 2-oz shaped bottle with a shrink-sleeve label, brings the likeness of feature film Bee Move star, Barry B. Benson, to life. The small package personifies bees, which are small characters, adding an element of “cute.”

Cheerios Tot Pack

Cheerios’ HDPE container improves on convenience in serving cereal to small children with a Tot Pack size holding 1.1 oz of product. The recyclable package enables cereal to be poured easily and eliminates the need put cereal into plastic bags for consumption.

Oscar Mayer Stay-Fresh Reclosable Tray

Consumers have long lamented the hassle and greasy mess that come with opening and closing bacon packages. Kraft Foods’ Oscar Mayer division offers a solution with its Stay-Fresh Reclosable Tray. A thermoformed tray holds 12 oz of bacon and a snap-fit lid gives the package reclosability. An easy-peel film is vacuum-sealed to the tray flange.

Five-piece Maybelline compact case

A five-piece, lateral- and vertical-opening compact case reinforces Maybelline as an innovative brand with the introduction of its Dream Matte Powder. The case’s lower section holds a puff and the upper section holds the powder and a “shade-evident” lens that enables shoppers to view and examine the shade of powder on the shelf.

Air-tight combo-container for lip products

Custom polypropylene jars with stacked-component construction refreshen the Skinlogics Lip Appeal brand, from BeautiControl Inc. The package eliminates complaints about product drying out by creating stackable jars for lip line peel and lip balm. Each container is threaded on top and sealed with foam membranes and an overcap.

Package shape elevates detergent’s positioning

Procter & Gamble draws inspiration from beauty care products with a “jewelry box” design that transforms Cascade Complete into a premium brand. On the label, the brand’s blue and green colors swirl in a vortex shape to convey the product’s cleaning power. This distinctive shape repeats inside the dissolvable detergent pouches.

Single-use caulk packs

Not every caulk job is a big one, and caulk often dries out and goes to waste after packages are opened for smaller jobs. Caulk Singles provides a solution with a single-use, disposable caulk package. The 1.25-oz stand-up pouch, measuring 5 inches tall, uses geometric bellows—a layer of white E-flute corrugated attached to the back of the pack.

Elmer’s bottle becomes more versatile

A new bottle for Elmer’s Glue features an oval shape that‘s ergonomically comfortable to hold and use with one hand, and an off-center neck with a push-pull cap and spout to make pouring and filling easier. The shrink-sleeve label effectively markets each product in the family while also addressing label height and shrink challenges.

The Sonoco Institute will lead the seminar Streamlined Package Design Nov. 3-5 at Clemson University’s Printing and Research Center, Clemson, SC.

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.

As the packaging and displays that designers create move downstream toward the store shelf, they are increasingly stopping off at a contract packager's facility for pack-out.

Community programs, finding funding tougher than ever to obtain, are turning more to cause-related marketing to raise money and awareness to support their objectives. The Death Valley Natural History Association found an innovative way, using packaging, to support its Death Valley ROCKS program and its mission of bringing city kids to the park to experience the natural world.

If packaging is essential in marketing your brand, pay attention to shape as you attend trade shows and conferences this fall. Designers who focus on structural packaging form have long considered their craft something of a "dark art," compared with the perceived sexier world of colors and graphics, but that is evolving.

Packaging is getting smaller in many product categories, heightening the communications challenge for brand marketers. The hurdles are especially tough when a package requires bilingual copy. WhiteDove Herbals, Boulder, CO, found a solution by using a standard carton creatively to serve both English- and Spanish-speaking consumers.

In our Aug. 7 issue, Ted Mininni, President of Design Force Inc., wrote a very insightful article called "Rethinking package design beyond the billboard." Ted's article received a high "hit" rate, but Shelf Impact! provided an incorrect link to Ted's full article.

Click here to access the complete article.

Packaging innovation is important for most brand owners; 86% of those surveyed recently say that marketing, branding, and packaging have a heightened role in product marketing efforts today. However, the processes that lead to innovation are either lacking or need to be refined to encourage creativity and bring new ways of doing things into the package-creation process.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) operates in healthcare products, which the design community considers to be possibly the last remaining section of the store in which packaging is generally falling short of its potential for impacting sales. GSK is one of the healthcare community's design leaders. A recent example: Packaging for its new alli over-the-counter (OTC) weight-loss brand provides some of the emotional support women need to get through a weight-loss program.

Maybelline New York wanted a distinctive package that connotes style for its new Dream Matte Powder compact product, so it went beyond color and special effects and also selected a sophisticated packaging structure.

Innovative designs and trends, actionable insights, and sustainable solutions will take center stage at the 10th annual Proof Presents ... Packaging That Connects conference Sept. 22-24 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago, IL. Shelf Impact! is a media partner of the conference.

Why is consumer product packaging still viewed by many as a billboard?

Packages across categories are getting smaller, and the trend toward more portable beverage and prepared-food containers will drive the increased use of plastics in rigid food packaging in the U.S. market.

Brand marketers and package designers alike seem to be looking for that "silver bullet" when they can say, "Aha! Now we're sustainable!"

Bottled wines typically achieve packaging distinction through the bottle shape or the label.

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.

Let's face it.

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

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.

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

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?

Avlon Industries, Melrose Park, IL, a manufacturer of salon and consumer hair products for the ethnic market, is leveraging structural design to assure that hair stylists use its Affirm Cream Relaxer hair salon products correctly. The new package structure also reduces costs.

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.

ConAgra needed a package offering both purchase appeal and user convenience for its Ro*Tel Ready to Eat Queso Dip. It found the answer in a custom-molded polypropylene cup with a shrink label.

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.

A closer look at the newest trends in today's packaging.

If you want to operate at the forefront of sustainable packaging, the Greener By Design conference will offer you the strategies, tools, and markets to get there. The conference, hosted by Global Executive Companies, will be June 12-13, 2008, at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center, Alexandria, VA.

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.

The Global Package Gallery wants your package designs!

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

Some of the brightest branding and design minds in the business will highlight this year's FUSE: Design & Culture/Brand Identity & Packaging conference, produced by the Institute for International Research (IIR), will be April 13-16 at Pier 60, Chelsea Piers, New York City.

In the Pacific Northwest, DANI Natural Products, Bend, OR, is marketing pure soy candles and "ECO" natural reed diffusers in clear containers made from corn-based polymers. The packaging, from NatureWorks LLC, is biodegradable.

The cotton-wicked, soy candles are 100% biodegradable and burn soot-free. The candle's glass receptacle bears a recyclable aluminum lid. After a candle is spent, the receptacle is reusable elsewhere in the home.

The natural reed diffuser oil also comes in glass receptacles with accompanying reeds, and it offers an alternative to traditional incense sticks. The oil provides a safe, flame-free way to slowly diffuse and distribute all-natural fragrances. The reed soaks up the essential-oil blend and is released during burning.

DANI distributes both products through retail boutique stores and at www.danibath.com. Suggested retail price is about $18 for the soy candles and $30 for the reed diffusers.

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.

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.

Some of the brightest branding and design minds in the business will highlight this year's FUSE: Design, Culture, Branding conference (formerly Brand Identity and Package Design). The conference, produced by the Institute for International Research (IIR), will be April 13-16 at Pier 60, Chelsea Piers, New York City.

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.

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.

It's all about stewardship, life, and energy, and it's playing out in the beauty and health and wellness categories.

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!

Brand and category managers who want to grow market share should be paying close attention to two trends occurring in stores today. The first trend is an increase in more sophisticated store brands stressing value. The second one is the revival of the “center store.”

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.

Editor’s note: Global Package Gallery is a brand new Web site developed by Shelf Impact! The growing gallery currently contains more than 4,200 high-resolution package images from 37 countries, arranged by product category. Early subscribers include Unilever, Avon, Whole Foods, and a number of package design firms. But rather than us tell you about the gallery, we asked a real designer to review it. Here's what Kevin Saladyga had to say.

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.”

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.

Why can some products build an army of loyal consumers with little or no advertising and other brands require an expensive promotional campaign for success? Patrick Hanlon, Founder and CEO of Thinktopia, says true brands are belief systems with perceptible meaning to set them apart from commodity products.

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

"The products are for teens and pre-teens, and we wanted to have packaging that was both attractive and inspirational for these girls," says Susan Shand, CEO and Co-Founder of TESS, Santa Barbara, CA.

Messages printed onto various packaging components include phrases such as "dare to dream," "speak your mind," and never settle."

TESS is using 2-oz and 4-oz clear and white PET Boston Round bottles, from The Cosmetic Packaging Group, O.Berk Co., with white disc dispensing caps or fine-mist spray tops. The range of packaging also includes 4-oz clear PET wide-mouth jars with white caps. Color hues on containers and caps match brand formulations and colors.

Unilever's Breyers brand created a new ice cream product based on new processing technology that swirls extra silky, smooth ice cream together with a range of indulgent toppings. Marketed under the Swirls subbrand, packaging sells the ice cream's distinctive design pattern to consumers.

Smith Design created the identity and label design for the line of quarts in six flavors. The Swirls brand name, printed in whimsical typography on the label, highlights the product's swirl effect, evident through the clear plastic container.

Mouth-watering illustrations of fruit and toppings call attention to the ice cream's "freshly made" ingredients and accentuate the product's eye appeal at the point of sale.

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

For some homeowners, their bar is becoming a status symbol. They're expressing interest in wine and spirits bottles that not only perform the functional task of holding a beverage, but that double as decorative pieces.

Just a few seats remain for the ninth annual Proof: Market Research & Strategy Development for Package Design conference.

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 said…

In June, Shelf Impact! asked you this question: “Does your design process integrate graphic branding with structural functionality, or do you consider aesthetics of secondary importance?”

Unilever's Breyers brand created a new ice cream product based on new processing technology that swirls extra silky, smooth ice cream together with a range of indulgent toppings. Marketed under the Swirls subbrand, packaging sells the ice cream's distinctive design pattern to consumers.

If you work in research, strategy development or design, the ninth annual Proof: Market Research & Strategy Development for Package Design conference is for you. Produced by the Institute for International Research, Proof will be from Oct. 1-3, 2007, at the Wyndham Hotel in Chicago.

Brand design is so much more than the artistic veneer it once was. It’s about orchestrating and delivering a total experience based on a deep understanding of what the consumer wants. When orchestrated perfectly, the design provides brand differentiation and delivers an experience that’s positive, memorable, and unexpected. In the fast-moving world of consumer goods, the opportunity for direct consumer experience with the brand is minimal. That is why Procter & Gamble’s previous way of thinking about design—regionally organized package and product design focused on simple aesthetics and technical aspects—gave way to a global design strategy based on the totality of the brand experience.

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.

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:

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:

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.”

In our survey conducted last month, Shelf Impact! asked readers whether you think about production-line issues during package design. Not surprisingly, most of you said absolutely.

Woodford Reserve Distillery found an innovative way to leverage its sponsorship of the Kentucky Derby through packaging. The uniquely decorated bottles support the distillery’s Woodford Reserve bourbon whiskey as a super-premium brand that, like the beloved annual horse race, stands apart from competitors.

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.

Brand identity and packaging create premium Select line while also tying into the parent brand’s equity.

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.

In southeast China, packaging for food that can spoil has to work doubly hard. Beyond brand communication, it has to protect the product from the region ’ s heat and humidity.

“ 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.

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.

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

Six new packages strut their stuff. Packaging has become more closely aligned with corporate business strategies. Increasingly, it has a seat at management ’ s table.

Anyone who creates packaging should take note of two significant trends occurring in the battleground that is the store shelf. First, the steady growth of retailer-brand products in food and beverage has begun to create a “ halo ” effect over non-grocery categories. Second, mega- retailers and specialty chains are stealing market share from traditional supermarkets, strengthened with shelves displaying an abundance of brands exclusive to their stores.

The salient feature of much of the new product development in children’s lunchbox and on-the-go foods is the prevalence of health claims and movement toward healthier foods. Marketers are leaning on packaging to help deliver messages about these benefits.

Are Universal Design principles incorporated into your brand's package developed process?

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:

The Institute for International Research (IIR) has announced additional speakers for its 11th annual Fuse: Brand Identity & Package Design conference April 16-18, 2007, at Pier 60, Chelsea Piers, in New York City.

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.

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.

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 12th annual Fuse: Brand Identity & Package Design conference will offer brand stewards and package designers the newest tools and information for mastering the art and science of package design and communications.

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.

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.”

The leading edge of in-store pizza marketing is shifting to the refrigerated aisle in supermarkets, with fresh deli pizzas, and focusing less on the freezer case. Uno Foods, Brockton, MA, offers a good example of how packaging is playing a pivotal role in this trend.

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.”

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

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 Lynn Dornblaser, Mintel International
From Package Design magazine

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

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.

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:

Experience is the best teacher, they say. And because this adage is as true in packaging as it is anywhere else, Packaging World magazine used it as the basis for an exclusive online survey conducted this spring when Packworld.com asked packaging professionals for their wisdom, insights, and “eureka” moments.

From fabric and skin care to energy drinks, new packages communicate what the product does

Mintel’s Global New Products Database cites several products that have recently come on the market. Each product’s packaging spotlights the product benefits.

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?

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.

Bacardi gets $50 for 750-mL of tequila with a glass bottle that reflects the modern art of Mexico. “Our goal was to create a super premium tequila and a package that’s in a class of its own. It’s a true premium offering—both product and package,” says Yousef Zaatar, Vice President Global Packaging at Bacardi.

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

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

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.

Consumers’ cereal packaging needs (and those of frustrated bag-in-box cereal eaters everywhere) are about to be realized with the sleeve-in-pouch (SIP) package design. The brainchild of Hosokawa Yoko, the SIP design emulates the cube of a carton, offers the easy-open/reclosure attributes of a zipper, and capitalizes on the efficiencies of in-line form-fill-seal manufacturing.

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.

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.

Launches of new products have been particularly active over the last year in the facial-care aisle. The category is enjoying growth on two fronts: products formulated and packaged for men, as well as in-the-home, salon-style treatment kits.

Define your visual equities, design for the future, and trust your agency. These steps will help you to keep the forces of the familiar at bay.

Dyna-Tabs, LLC plans to use convenient plastic packs of dissolvable strips to introduce more than 50 items that tap into wellness trends.

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.

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.

Procter & Gamble Prestige Products is extending the Hugo Boss brand into men’s skin care at Bloomingdale’s stores with Boss Skin, a subbrand of eight products in what Boss Skin Global Marketing Director Marco Parsiegla describes as a “hero pack.”

Wines in packaging that bring a fresh look to the aisle are leading category sales in U.S. grocery, liquor, and drug stores. Sales are up more than 50% for wine brands using wine-in-box packages and those with screwcap closures.

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.

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?

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 closure is often a forgotten packaging Component when positioning a product as high quality. Not for Milchwerke Thuringen GmbH. The subsidiary of Humana Milchunion Group has introduced an aseptic beverage carton in Germany with a three- piece screw cap that enhances perceptions of product freshness.

The company is using the closure on cartons of its Osterland brand of long-life, full-cream milk; long-life, low-fat milk; and long-life, skim milk.

Start small,seek growth and above all, make your effort a team

A completely sustainable package should be sourced responsibly and designed to be effective and safe throughout its life cycle. It should meet market criteria for performance and cost, be made entirely with renewable energy, and be recycled efficiently. Each package is part of a cradle-to-cradle packaging system.

Lenticular imaging by Xtreme Graphics adds a new dimension to an ordinary container for Houston Harvest popcorn products, winning the package the 2005 AmeriStar People’s Choice Award. The promotional package applies a 3-D printed lenticular lens to a tin-plated container, which is printed in lithography. The result is packages with optical illusions that call attention to the product.

The raved-about Starbucks Coffee Liqueur bottle design reflects Starbucks' and Jim Beam's reputations as sophisticated brands.

Much ado has been made over the stunning glass container introduced in 2005 that made Starbucks Coffee Liqueur the top seller in the category and made the brown-bottle design a unanimous winner in the Glass Packaging Institute’s Clear Choice Awards program. But not so well known are the factors that prompted that success.

It was another case of knowing your consumer—how they shop and the visual and cognitive cues that prompt them to buy. Ryan Little, Managing Director/Creative at Lipson Alport Glass & Associates, uses the term “emotive resonance” in describing the notion of satiating consumer desires, and he explained its place in the design for Starbucks Coffee Liqueur at the Package Design 06 conference Jan. 31.

Starbucks coffee is close to achieving market maturity. However, its consumer base remains fanatically loyal to the product, and the company estimates the coffee brand’s value at $16.2 billion, more than two-thirds of the value of the whole company. Little says that marketers at Starbucks faced this challenge: How do you continue to grow a brand that’s saturated and take it in new directions?

Few retailers have more varied requirements, and packagers need to understand them.

Packaging for club stores and other high-volume retailers is getting more complex as retailers compete for market share. They see packaging as a weapon, and they often ask for packaging that is exclusive to them. Packagers respond with a range of solutions, from structural innovation in secondary packaging to graphic solutions on primary containers.

    Based in Atlanta, Wilpak is a contract packager that does a lot of club store packaging. Wilpak General Manager Tom Taylor suggests that packagers work with a standard set of cases or trays and build variations around them, avoiding the need for extensive testing on each variation.

    “You don’t want to have to validate every pallet. If you have a standard display tray, and it has gone through the testing, you don’t have to go through all that again,” he says. “You ultimately reduce your costs with larger order quantities. You help your bottom line by minimizing those costs.”

    An example comes in a club store display tray from Clorox. The tray’s innovative structural design allows it to be erected by machine. Says Randy Wood of Clorox, “It gives us a 40% reduction in the amount of corrugated compared to manually erected trays of the equivalent size. It doesn’t have quite the stacking strength of other cases, but we add heavy corner posts on pallets so we can stack them.”

    The trays also deliver merchandising advantages in club stores. “The pallet is four-side-shoppable,” Wood says.

    The trays come in three different sizes that allow patterns of six, seven, or eight trays per tier, depending on the size of the primary packages. Trays are modular, and different pallet configurations have been through pre-shipment testing. When a new product goes in a pre-tested pallet configuration, Clorox doesn’t have to do additional testing. “That drastically improves speed-to-market for the products,” Wood emphasizes.

Retailer merchandising strategies mean that successful packaging has to go beyond cost-cutting; it must sell brands. Tammy Cahill, Director of Retail Activation for LPK, a Cincinnati design firm, advises to be aware of “treasure hunt” merchandising tactics. Retailers who use this tactic frequently change store arrangements and special offers. An effective strategy requires using all packaging components.

A club store pack for Procter & Gamble’s Olay brand is one example. Corrugated trays deliver a selling message. A display LPK created for Olay includes the brand name on the tray’s lip along with the tag line, “Love the skin you’re in.” The word “Bonus,” printed on the tray lip, stresses value. A die cut adds shape by breaking the tray’s straight, rectangular lines.

Read on for Jim Peters’ additional analysis of high-volume-retailer packaging.

In January, Shelf Impact! asked readers this question: “What are the three most important challenges facing your packaging team in 2006?” Fifty-seven of you responded, and following are the most frequently cited answers.     

     “We are searching the Internet to find alternative resin suppliers.”

    “Conducting focus groups and meeting with new packaging designers.”

    “Lean-techniques training.”

Flat plastic pouch turns into a decorative and sturdy vase when filled with water.

Only a packaging geek finds—and then actually purchases—interesting packaging in an art museum gift shop. A recent pilgrimage to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City left me bored to tears, but I struck package design pay dirt in the gift shop.

    D-Bros, a Tokyo-based designer/creator of “products for living,” utilized a polyester/polyamide/polyethylene lamination to create a utilitarian stand-up pouch flower vase, named Hope Forever Blossoming. Designers Ryosuke Uehara and Yoshio Watanabe capitalized on the refractive properties of light through translucent material and water to take advantage of cross-cross, gravure-printed patterns that create an optical illusion of depth and clarity when filled with water.

    Amazing how five cents worth of flexible packaging material and fractions of a cent worth of ink can be converted into a sticker price of $24.99. But with two pouch vases to a packet, it was a bargain at any price. Brilliant. And the PET container is crystal clear hand-blown glass.

Q: “What is changing in the design landscape, and where can we get inspiration for better package designs?”

—asked at the Package Design 06 conference in January in Clearwater Beach, FL.

A: Consumer product companies are paying a lot more attention to research. Often, we’re finding that it’s already been done by the time they talk to us, the design firm. But in the process, they’ve also already reached some conclusions that we don’t necessarily agree with.

If they already know what they want and they just want us, the package designer, to execute it, that usually doesn’t work out too well.

It’s good to see product companies doing scientific research, but we see it sometimes being used the wrong way. My advice is to use it, but do research wisely.

After wandering through the visual clutter in Wal-Mart recently, I borrow architect Mies van der Rohe’s “less is more” principal. Store shelves offer plenty of opportunity to “break through the noise with quiet” by working toward package designs that are subtle yet sophisticated.

Sophistication has a certain “je ne sais quoi,” poorly translated to mean, “I don’t know what it is that is so special about that, but something definitely is.” It creates an allure that might not be visible immediately; perhaps it’s slightly hidden behind layers. It’s a design whose intrigue invites the consumer to peruse, try, and hopefully appreciate. Following are some principles to guide your design of packaging that subtly welcomes consumers to your brand’s sophistication.

Sophistication is about attention to detail. Not only do all the components work faultlessly, but there is also a place for every detail and every detail is in its place. Sophisticated packaging stands out. Cosmetic lines such as Shiseido create a very distinct and consistent family appearance. Each mascara, lipstick, and compact is precisely engineered and designed to communicate and deliver something different from the other.

1. Strive for equitable use of the package. Ensure that a variety of consumers can use the package, regardless of differences in their physical abilities, behaviors, habits, and size. Kimberly-Clark's redesign of Huggies Baby Wash packaging features a "grippable" bottle with a large lid that mom can manipulate in one hand while holding the baby with the other hand at bath time.

2. Provide flexibility in use. Encourage designs that provide a choice in methods of product use and that accommodate right- or left-handed use.

3. Design for simple and intuitive use. Your design is successful if an untrained person can effectively navigate the design and understand the product immediately. Procter & Gamble’s Febreze Air Effects air freshener cans include a trigger and grip zone that guide the consumer to the appropriate grip.

4. Communicate perceptible information. Use different symbols and tactile finishes for redundant presentation of essential information, maximizing legibility.

Sara Lee says new packaging graphics signaling attributes such as “fresh” and “clean” have boosted market share and sales of its Ty-D-Bol toilet cleaner.

Responding to a wave a competitors sporting more contemporary packaging with fresh brand promises, Sara Lee has leveraged the efficacy of the brand’s iconic “Ty-D-Bol Man” in the brand’s new packaging. Hanson Associates developed a design that translates across the brand’s range of products.

An illustration of the Ty-D-Bol Man anchors the packaging communications. The character’s icon is prominently incorporated into a new brand logo.

Q: “Strategic development of a communications hierarchy is crucial when designing packaging. What packaging elements make this hierarchy achievable?”

—Marc Balara, Creative Director
Packaging and Graphics, K’NEX

A: K’NEX came to us with that question recently, and the brand’s new packaging demonstrates that communication hierarchies are important in leveraging brand strategy and should be carefully designed. Delivering consistent brand communications and personal, meaningful experiences to every consumer is priority No. 1.

Design Force used the red diagonal flow of the package to set up a communication system that indicates the skill level for each K’NEX model building set, as well as how many models can be built with the enclosed instructions. The imagery of a boy proudly holding his completed model provides the brand’s “wow” factor.

High-tech products are shrinking in size, yet their capabilities are becoming more sophisticated. One of the biggest challenges facing marketers of these products is to tell a compelling story and get essential product information on the packaging, which is shrinking in size along with the product.

For Rivet International, San Diego, the packaging answer was simple product descriptions and instructional diagrams, and minimal text. The graphics card inside the clamshell positions “techie” products as a lifestyle brand through graphics and imagery.

The design, created by Mires, a branding agency, makes the quality of Rivet’s products prominent and “positions Rivet as a cool, cutting-edge brand,” says Raleigh Wilson, President and CEO of Rivet. It extends the products’ appeal to mass-merchandise-store consumers.

Product formulation specialists at Prestone Products Corp. developed several new chemical formulations that led to an advanced level of car-care products in Prestone’s De-Icer line. These include windshield-washer fluid with a dirt blocker that helps repel road spray and other salty, wintery grime.

The marketing department at Prestone set about positioning the new, stronger product formulations that make consumers feel empowered in keeping their car surfaces cleaner. Prestone and Group 4, a branding and design firm, interviewed consumers and settled upon the positioning phrase “Take Back Winter” for the extension of the De-Icer brand.

Procter & Gamble Co. has opened up a new area of the package for graphics and branding information in introducing a cross-promotional package for Tide with Febreze Freshness to its stable of laundry detergents. P&G opted for a decorated cap with a shrink-sleeve label to attract consumers’ attention and to help them easily distinguish Tide with Febreze Freshness from other products in the Tide lineup.

A decorated cap gives the laundry detergent package distinction in a category in which the bottle caps are typically undecorated.

The shrink-sleeve wraps around the cap’s entire vertical wall. Label graphics are rotogravure-printed in five colors. Color-coded caps indicate the scent varieties.  Matching colors and an icon appear on the bottle label to reinforce the brand’s identity and indicate the product scent.

The shrink-sleeve cap also demonstrates that outsourcing some packaging operations makes sense. P&G determined that it required outside expertise to create the sleeves and attach them to the caps.

Energizer produced 1.5 million 10-packs of pink batteries that hit Target shelves in October to coincide with National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Visit www.komen.org and www.energizer.com/sgk.

Jeffrey Roth, Energizer Holdings Inc.’s Brand Manager/National Promotions, says Energizer has a longstanding relationship with the local St. Louis chapter of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. Energizer has been a regular local contributor, but wanted to step up on a national scale.

Tapping its iconic pink Energizer Bunny, known for the ability to keep “going and going and going,” Energizer adapted the slogan to an inspirational message associated with fighting breast cancer: “The Power to Keep Going.”

A growing challenge facing packagers today is creating a “billboard” on measured-purchase products that are displayed outside of the package. While consumers can examine the product before deciding whether to purchase it, marketers lose billboard space when the product itself rests on a hook or display shelf.

Black & Decker, Towson, MD, believes it has solved that challenge by revamping the design of point-of-purchase (P-O-P) communications for its power tools. Sara Simonsen, Brand Manager, says, “Our main objective was to look consistent, to put more emphasis on the Black & Decker brand, and have the P-O-P be easier to understand from a consumer standpoint.”

The ability to quickly understand product features and to differentiate between brands in higher-priced tools such as electric hedge trimmers is important to consumers. Equally important to brand owners and retailers alike is packaging elements that are durable enough to withstand the wear and tear when consumers repeatedly pick up a product to inspect it in the store.

Piedmont Distillers, Madison, NC, wanted a distinctive bottle design to introduce its Catdaddy Carolina Moonshine regional brand with special appeal for Jägermeister consumers. It opted for a modern interpretation of a ceramic moonshine jug, created by Flowdesign.

The amber glass on the 750-mL bottle’s domed neck flows downward into a ridge to emulate a moonshine jug. Triple Xs are embossed on the glass below the ridge, and the brand logo is embossed in the label area on the glass.

The wraparound label is a ceramic material that’s sprayed and baked onto the glass. Text is screen-printed onto the label in two colors plus a blended color for the cream background.

Link: Flowdesign

The package design for Procter & Gamble’s Olay White Radiance, a skincare line marketed exclusively to China, communicates sophistication and elegance with visual cues that embrace Chinese women’s preference for simplicity in design and color.

This package reflects the Olay brand identity in China with clean lines using white, platinum, small volumes of color, and iridescent and pearlescent inks to signal product differentiation.

Brand design agency LPK won a design excellence award for its work on the package. The International Package Design Award was presented at the Health & Beauty America Expo.

Link: LPK

A label with distinctive styling adds excitement, curiosity, and intrigue to Mikey’s New York Steak Marinade, which is marketed in New York City.

Label designs depict the New York skyline and the colors recall the signage of the Ed Sullivan Theatre, as well as colors used in the New York State Lottery, says Michael Romano, Founder of Mikey’s Famous Marinades Corp.

The labels are pressure-sensitive semigloss paper, flexo-printed in five colors. A laminate protects the label from moisture and scuffing while adding luster.

Contributing to the package: Christopher Harri Design, Blue Ribbon Tag & Label, and Seal-It Inc.

Links: Blue Ribbon Tag & Label Seal-It Inc.

In order to reward early buyers of the Xbox game Jade Empire. Microsoft Corp. created a limited-edition, collectible package that sparkles with 3-D holography.

The game comes in a DVD case holding two CDs and an instruction booklet. The case features a holographic 6-pt paper insert from Vacumet Corp. The paper is lacquer-coated, micro-embossed, and metallized to impart the holographic effect.

The holographic “nine-up” sheet is offset-printed in six colors plus UV varnish and die-cut by AGI Media Services.

Precise registration gives the graphics razor-sharp edges. Technicolor did the assembly and packaging.

Links: Vacumet Corp. AGI Media Services Technicolor

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.

Susan Kropf, President of Avon Products Inc., has a message for brand managers, designers, and retailers. You need to spend more time walking in consumers’ shoes if you want to make your products more than just functionally relevant to consumers.

The best packages compel consumers to sense the pleasure in using the product, giving them space to personalize meaning and build relevance.

Great packages communicate so effectively on a sensual and emotional level that a consumer can’t help but pick them up. They lend the product inside a special beauty all its own, so that consumers are drawn to the product because the package has made that product aesthetically pleasing.

Virginia Postrel, author of The Substance of Style, uses the phrase the “aesthetic imperative” to describe this dynamic between the consumer and the package. Following are three packages that reflect Postrel’s thinking.

“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.

Gina and Charles Hall created Hill Station Ice Cream hoping to bring the highest-quality ingredients and wildest flavors to the most discerning ice cream lovers. The Halls wanted the Hill Station name to evoke remembrances of travels in the tropics, where hill stations are places to escape the oppressive equatorial sun.

However, Hill Station Ice Cream tubs failed to communicate these tropical associations. The Williams Murray Hamm design agency in London created a brand for the ice cream that’s staged around the hill stations.

Photography of handmade signs points travelers to nearby hill stations. Signposts emphasize grown-up adventure while tropical sky backdrops hint that unusual ice cream ingredients from the tropics await inside the tub.

The market for the Hill Station brand is less seasonal, so the packaging design can be more informal. For example, the order in which information is presented on the tub is sometimes changed. In addition, each flavor has a unique picture.

El Paso Chile Co., El Paso, TX, already was supplying freezer buckets filled with prepackaged margarita fixings to the liquor department at Target stores. The gourmet- products company also provides a line of drink mixes packaged in glass shaker-style bottles with standard lug closures. Target wanted a cocktail-mix packaging idea that could increase sales. The only stipulation was that the container be made of plastic.

El Paso worked with Berlin Packaging and Berlin’s design division, Studio One Eleven, to create a package design to satisfy Target’s objectives. Studio One Eleven created a three-piece packaging system for El Paso’s new Cocktail Chemistry line of beverage mixes. The consumer simply adds vodka and ice to the container, shakes, and pours the mixed beverage into a glass.

If you manage the packaging research and development process in your company, the seventh annual Market Research and Development for Package Design conference is for you. The conference will be Sept. 21-23, 2005, at the W Chicago CityCenter in Chicago.

The conference host is the Institute for International Research, and Shelf Impact! is a media partner.

The prevailing sentiment among the readers who said no was “fat chance!” Your responses painted a dismal picture that clearly indicates that senior management at some CPGs still treats package creation as an afterthought. And, the company culture makes any change in approach unlikely, to put it kindly.

The following reader comment very eloquently stated the feelings of the “when pigs fly!” crowd:

Voting has begun for Package Design magazine’s second annual Package Design Makeover Challenge. This year’s design team participants are Brand Engine in Sausalito,CA; Goodwin Design Group in Media,PA; Gravity, Cincinnati; Tin Horse, Marlborough, Wiltshire,U.K.; and a student team from the Michigan State University School of Packaging, East Lansing,MI.

The five teams re-created packages for five SKUs of the Golightly brand of sugar-free hard candy. A number of structural innovations resulted as well. Before-and-after photos and written accounts of each team’s product makeover are presented in the July/August 2005 issue of the magazine, 3D models of each package, and a ballot are available at www.packagedesignmag.com.

Shelf Impact! readers are encouraged to cast ballots online by Sept. 28. “The participants in this year’s Makeover Challenge are the creative cream of the crop in the package design industry,” says Christopher Lyons, Publisher of Package Design.

SABMiller required a promotion to further emphasize Miller Genuine Draft in South Africa, and pressure-sensitive labels from Spear both highlight the limited-edition package and create the vehicle to execute the promotion.

A UV-sensitive ink “glows” under UV light in a bar or nightclub and intensifies the bottle’s no-label look. A heavy tactile surface over the Miller branding further emphasizes both the brand and its premium position.

A two-ply back label allows consumers to easily peel away the top layer, revealing a hidden five-digit code in an on-pack promotion for gift giveaways.

In June, Shelf Impact! asked how you incorporate packaging graphics and structure to sell the emotion in your brand. Twenty-eight readers responded and some of your answers were downright thoughtful.

“We’ve designed the structure and graphics for a line of fitness products for women. We used transparency, curves, and unique, rounded forms to make the package appealing while looking strong and high quality. The graphics convey a premium, authentic image for the product line.”—Chet Makoski, Donaldson Makoski Inc.

Why is package design management often in the corporate cost-savings cross hairs? Why is the process not valued more highly? The answers are rooted in three primary issues: an absence of “best practices,” a lack of autonomy, and an inability to measure packaging’s financial impact.

Most CPGs organize their marketing department and manage procurement, accounting, and sales similarly. However, few CPGs manage brand identity and package design in the same way. And, a growing number of companies have no internal package design management or process. This can’t be good for their packaging’s impact on the store shelf.

This level of extreme inconsistency exists for the following reasons:

• As a widely exhibited generality, design management has no direct link to executive management. In short, package design managers all too often bear all of the responsibility for the process but have little power to fund or direct it.

• Few package design managers control their own project budgets.

• Few CPGs provide for design leadership above middle management.

At the recent Brand Identity & Package Design conference in New York, five package designers and managers lamented the realities of getting effective package designs approved in “Corporate America.” Their panel discussion produced these top-line conclusions:

1. Understand the people you’re working with from their perspective.

2. Tune into your values every day.

3. Leverage resources.

4. Work seamlessly.

5. Practice “tough love.”

6. Think differently.

Here are some thoughts from the panelists:

Amanda Bach, Packaging Communications Design Manager at Nestlé USA, said her shift from designer to the corporate world broadened her perspective; she had to learn to “walk the walk” of marketers. “Designers are not just designing for themselves. They’re designing for someone with a mission. I had to learn to speak the corporate language.”

Recently in Shelf Impact!, Seattle Package Designer David Kendall lamented his belief that package design is drifting toward commodity status. Many Shelf Impact! readers agree with David. This month, we share more of your responses.

“Yes, I agree with Mr. Kendall. Graphic designers must get their heads in the game and contribute meaningful concepts that translate on the shelf at “buy time.” The designers should understand and be aligned with the brand manager’s understanding of the target audience in order to elevate the packaging from commodity to an obvious value to consumer and retail buyer.”

—Patt Kelly-Pollet, Brand Manager, Innotek Inc.

“No, I disagree. I actually think the trend is just the opposite. True creative talents are valued within organizations for their thinking and ability to solve marketing issues. We are being asked to be the brand stewards to protect those visual equities.”

—Carrie M. Golvash, Senior Manager, Package Design & Development

“Yes, I agree with David, because no one is seeing big sales benefits from packaging alone.”

—Edward Bauer

Is package design becoming devalued as a commodity service? Seattle Package Designer David Kendall thinks so (Shelf Impact! April 2005). We asked for your opinions, and did we ever strike a nerve. Here is a sampling of what you said (more responses in June’s Shelf Impact! Weigh in with your viewpoint at george@packworld.com).

One-third of survey respondents say packaging is a key player in product development. Maybe not yet, says a consultant.

Respondents to a targeted survey on packaging and product development say that packaging plays a significant role in product development about one-third of the time. But they say packaging really should be key about 70% of the time.

So says the data and analysis from a Packaging World magazine on-line survey in early 2005. The survey was developed with assistance from the consultancy Packaging & Technology Integrated Solutions (PTIS). Top-line results show:

The next iteration of the much-maligned PET-bodied, double-seamed aluminum topped can has entered commercial production. What differentiates this version from its straight-walled PET/aluminum combo predecessors is its high “Wow!” design quotient—shape, structure, and tactility.

Previous versions of this multi-material structure have included the PETainer introduced in the early 1980s by former plastics packaging giant Owens-Illinois, a look-alike two-piece structure from the Water Investment Network, and Elisha Mineral Water’s container introduced a year ago with an aluminum end and decorated with a full-body PET shrink sleeve.

In February 2005, Najaro Group decided a 12.3-oz version with a full-body shrink label was a novel idea for its FlavH20 water. This version has been creating a stir. Notably, the container is 500 ml, not the standard 350 ml.

David Kendall, Principal and Creative Director of Kendall Ross, a Seattle brand development and design firm, recently told students at the Metropolitan State College of Denver that graphic design is being reduced to a commodity. Shelf Impact! asked Kendall to elaborate on his perspective in the context of package development.

SI: Why do you say that designers need a reality check?

Kendall: We should be positioning design as a business tool and a business solution, and I don’t think schools teach it that way or designers grasp that until quite late in their careers. They just tend to wallow in the design base rather than offering solutions-based services. So there is a trend toward devaluation—trying to get it done cheaper.

Link: Collotype Labels
Neocork Technologies

Some wine marketers are moving to a playful image to gain distinction, primarily through the label. A recent example is Snob Hill Winery’s Le Snoot brand. An illustration of pigs anchors the label, intertwining both the California wine marketer’s brand image and name. A screened, high-gloss finish makes the illustration “pop” when set against the matte finish portion of the label.

Collotype prints the labels rotary offset in four-color process, plus black. A black synthetic cork from Neocork prevents the closure from drying out.

The best sales opportunities occur when a marketer can speak one-on-one with customers and change the message frequently.

This is what marketers are doing in Europe, Asia, South America, and Australia using a combination of tools whose time may be right in U.S. markets. The tools are packaging and wireless phones, and they leverage the technology known as text messaging.

The package can boost sales by signaling extra value

Simple communication tactic helps create a product-to-shopper connection