Murray's Chicken, New City, NY, is elevating eco-awareness to a higher level in case-ready meat by introducing a film package for fresh poultry that eliminates the use of polystyrene foam trays.

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.

The leading edge of healthcare product marketing is beginning to tap the power of the package as a marketing vehicle.

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

Creative teams are looking for examples of new packages that provide real benefits for the environment. One recent example comes from Boho Vineyards, San Francisco, CA, which succeeds on the sustainability front by thinking "inside the box."

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.

Salon Selectives is returning to store shelves after a four-year hiatus with new products and updated formulas among its 18-product line of shampoos, conditioners, and styling and treatment products. Packaging also updates the brand.

If your objective is shelf distinction in your category, do what competing brands don't.

Well-executed packaging graphics can "sell the taste." In the highly competitive chilled-foods aisle, f'REAL! Foods, Orinda, CA, achieved this objective when switching from preprinted cups to shrink sleeves for its 10-oz serving of frozen dairy products sold at convenience stores. The family line uses polyvinyl chloride sleeves, provided by Fort Dearborn, gravure-printed in nine colors to maximize visual impact through the glass doors of cooler cases.

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

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

The challenge for third-generation DelGrosso Foods: Increase distribution to gourmet supermarkets and specialty food stores. The solution: The company developed ultra premium, natural Italian sauces, marketed under the La Famiglia DelGrosso brand name, and then introduced them in packaging that reflects both the quality ingredients and family pride vested in the products.

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

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

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

Hormel Foods Corp. brings the colored pull-tab to the chili aisle with several varieties of chili in full-panel, steel easy-opening 15-oz cans. The red tabs provide a visual difference on store shelves.

"We felt that the red tab really brought attention to the can end," explains Marty Wolesky, Hormel Product Manager. "We stated the clear objective of being ready for chili season, and we worked closely with Silgan Containers to ensure a smooth and timely conversion with our production facilities."

Silgan provides the ends, tabs, and cans.

The redesigned paper label for the new chili can retains the familiar Hormel red background. The label emphasizes the chili's healthful benefits in ribbon colors that coordinate with each product variety. Suggested retail price is $1.49 to $2.49.

High-volume retailers are beginning to operate as brands rather than places, and this shift is profoundly impacting consumer packaged goods.

When a brand favored by professionals goes mainstream, communication challenges with the new audience can be considerable. The products are usually of premium quality, with a corresponding price point. The right packaging is essential in introducing the brand to mainstream consumers.

When suppliers talk proactively with the right people, the result often is packaging that stands out in a crowd—with money-saving efficiencies along the way.

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

Speed-to-market is an essential advantage for any marketer of health care products. Sageant LLC received new labels in less than two weeks that reflect well on its brand of health supplements and vitamins. In the process, Sageant gained the flexibility to rapidly produce cost-effective label short-runs for sales samples and promotional campaigns, says Kelly Gaisford, Sageant President.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Inspired by the company’s own century-plus heritage, a new PET bottle and label design add a twist while also reflecting on tradition for Mountain Valley Spring Water, from Mountain Valley Spring Co., Hot Springs, AR. The new look has expanded the brand’s distribution from independent home- and office-delivery distributors into retailers such as Whole Foods.

“We synthesized the pillars of our brand to be ‘quality,’ ‘heritage,’ and ‘Americana,’” says Jim Karrh, Chief Marketing Officer. “That means that everything we do, including our packaging, has to reflect at least one of those pillars—and do so in an authentic way.”

Created by Flowdesign, the new PET bottle combines the redesigned label of Mountain Valley’s recently redesigned glass bottle. Green-hued plastic and an hourglass profile give the PET bottle a contemporary flair. The top portion of the bottle mold depicts rolling mountains topped with pine trees and the words “Since 1871” embossed above the label.

Mountain Valley’s Veriplas Containers molds the bottle on-site, and Valley Label converts the glue-applied film label.

VasoActive Pharmaceuticals, Danvers, MA, has gained additional market distribution for its three OTC topical lotions—Termin-8 (for athlete’s foot), A-R Extreme (for temporary relief from minor sports-related muscular and skeletal injuries), and Osteon (for osteoarthritis and other muscle and joint pain)—by redesigning the packaging for more vibrancy, dimension, and color-coding. With new packaging, the brand’s OTC topical lotions signal product efficacy and health benefits over competitive products.

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

"The benefit of a resealable feature is twofold, says "John Roumelle, Marketing Manager at Betta Foods. "It serves as a visual differentiating factor at point of purchase and it allows our brands to stand out based on the added convenience."

Working with Zip-Pak, Betta Foods adds the zipper to a BOPP/CPP pouch with a trapped print lamination. The packages are flexo-printed in eight colors.

According to Zip-Pak, the zipper costs about .125 cent on a 6"-wide package, compared with 12¢ to 15¢ for comparable food storage bags.

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?

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

The challenge: The Stratis Group, Caldwell, NJ, wanted to reinforce the essence of Hawaiian fruit on the label to boost sales for its Hilo Gold Noni Juice. The solution: a decorative full-sleeve shrink label to stimulate maximum purchase impact.

When Wall Street is pressuring you to quickly revive a recently purchased slumping brand, the tendency often is to default to tactics such as “me-too” packaging. That was anything but the case at Procter & Gamble.

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.

Company Co-Founder Eric Ryan has been making the rounds at branding and design conferences, saying Method Products loves to break away from the utilitarian look as a way to challenge product category norms. The San Francisco, CA-based marketer has followed through on that approach in a number of household product categories, and is now bringing it to floor cleaner.

Merix Releev cold sore medication changes to pilfer-resistant film-laminated packaging to meet retailer demands.

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

Clarity in communicating what a product does is crucial when product and category are unique. Consider aquaICE, Dublin, OH. The company took a fresh look at its premium ice cubes in the shelf-stable form of purified water filled into sealed trays and boxed for sale. At home, consumers freeze the trays as needed and place the cubes directly in beverages.

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

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

Kerr Dental wanted to improve package durability and functionality for its OptiDisc Finishing and Polishing Disc Set, used by dentists.

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.

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

Morton International has begun refreshing package designs for its stable of specialty salts, which have been on the market for several years. This is a tall order that the Chicago-based company—historically not one for frequent packaging changes—is pursuing carefully. Why? The company’s flagship Morton Salt is one of the nation’s most trusted brands. Its dark blue-labeled, cylindrical basic table salt package is a staple in many kitchen pantries, and Morton doesn’t want consumers to lose identity with the core brand.

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

Icon brands that stay relevant and create symmetry between products in the brand “family” continue to endure in consumers’ hearts. Gerber, a long-trusted brand, is a recent example with a new packaging system for all three of its lines, which help consumers to shop the category more efficiently.

Packaged goods become abstract when even the smallest supermarket stocks thousands of SKUs. In this disconnected environment, consumers gravitate toward products with identifiable origins.

Anyone who is looking for evidence that huge sales gains are possible in a commodity category should study the success at Glaceau. The regional marketer restaged its Smartwater bottled water brand, expanded distribution in specialty food stores, supermarkets, and in Costco warehouse club stores in the central and southern United States—and sales increases are exceeding 100%.

Package Design magazine seeks branding and design professionals to vote online to select its annual Makeover Challenge winner. Five teams have re-created new packages and a new brand identity for four SKUs of the Fresh Body Market brand of vegan-certified soap and lotion products.

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.

As Wal-Mart ramps up its environmental sustainability initiative, the retailer is telling brand owners that they need to evolve into smaller packaging with reusable/recyclable materials within two years, or risk losing precious shelf space in Wal-Mart stores.

4C Foods Corp. boosted sales 7% for its 4C brand of seasoned salt-free breadcrumbs by refreshing the canister graphics to help reintroduce the long-time product’s benefits to diet-conscious consumers.

The redesigned canister graphics achieve two important objectives for the Brooklyn, NY-based marketer:

Tefft Cellars Winery eliminated “bulging” with its bag-in-box wine packaging---and created a more sophisticated look---by converting from conventional corrugated fluted cartons to Z-flute paper-based cartons for its Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon 4-liter wines.

The two-ply, laminated wall structure improves compression strength and enables the cartons to hold up better when stacked during distribution and storage. Graphic Packaging International supplied and converted material, and printed the carton flats in six colors through sheet-fed offset printing.

Tefft Cellars is saving about 40% in material costs by switching to the Z-flute cartons.

Mountain Valley Spring Co., Hot Springs, AR, returned to its historic roots to improve the presence of its Mountain Valley Spring Water brand in the crowded bottled water category. Working with Flowdesign, the marketer redesigned the entire brand communications for its bottled water.

A retro bottle shape and graphics hint of those used in the brand’s original bottle style in the 1800s. The glass bottle’s shoulder bears the words “Since 1871” embossed three times around the bottle and “America’s Premium Water” embossed two times around. Retro-looking fonts and graphic spirals embellish the brand’s signature oval in the middle of the label. Custom illustrations of trees and mountains provide the backdrop for the label, printed in a light green ceramic ink that wraps 180 degrees around the front of the bottle. The design includes a slimmer bottle neck.

Getting the logo bright red proved challenging in applied ceramic labeling, because bright red ceramic inks require lead, which is banned in some areas of the United States. Vitro Glass, the bottle manufacturer, solved the challenge by using a ceramic label application process that doesn’t require lead-based ink.

Can the impact of dollars invested in a package redesign be measured on the bottom line? United States Beverage believes the answer is yes. The company markets and manages Seagram’s Coolers, a 20-year-old brand owned by Pernod-Ricard USA, Lawrenceburg, IN.

In our April 2005 issue, Shelf Impact! reported that with sales stagnating or declining across Seagram’s family of wine coolers, U.S. Beverage in 2004 had discarded the brand’s iconic appearance and restaged the brand as Seagram’s Cooler Escapes, with more contemporary graphics that accentuate the fun inherent in consuming the fruity, low-alcohol-content beverage.

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.

WD-40 Co., San Diego, delivers a revamped 12-oz steel can from Crown Holdings with a permanently attached, built-in straw tube.

“We’ve learned that more than 80% of WD-40 users have lost the straw at some point,” says Tim Lesmeister, Vice President, Marketing.

The Smart Straw, from Mar-Lee Packaging & Consumer Products, contains a standard aerosol valve from Summit Packaging with an actuator piece that uses a plastic extender tube. It tilts to spray in a larger coverage area or a more precise application.

The Smart Straw package’s suggested retail price is $3.99, compared with $2.99 for the can with a detachable straw.

Link: Crown Holdings

Classic packaging designs are resurfacing in some categories to make new products look old and attract consumers through nostalgia. In health and beauty aids, the Body Shop uses a clip jar for three products in its Spa Wisdom line. The jars, from RPC Bramlage, are styled on the classic hermetically sealed, metal-handle glass storage jar.

A galvanized-metal handle and thermoplastic elastomer sealing ring top off the PET jars, screen-printed in two colors.

The 125-ML jar is for Africa Spa Honey Butter, the 200-ML jar holds Africa Spa Rich Body Balm, and the 350-ML jar contains Africa Spa Salt Scrub.

Link: RPC Bramlage

Polaris Industries Inc. leverages shape to create distinctive bottles commemorating its 50th anniversary. The 32-oz containers are shaped like all-terrain vehicles and snowmobiles to coincide with Polaris’ release of limited-edition ATV and snowmobile models.

The bottles are pearlescent gold HDPE and bear custom four-color, pressure-sensitive labels. Polaris selected the bottle stock and design in working with Lubrication Technologies Inc., its motor oil manufacturer and packager; Berlin Packaging; and Berlin’s Studio 111 Design agency.

Polaris says the cost of producing the bottles is 8–12% higher than for its regular motor oil packaging, but the distinctive package designs are popular with collectors.

Links: Berlin Packaging │ Studio 111 Design

In July, Shelf Impact! asked readers to ponder this question: How do you know when it’s time for a packaging change for your brand, and what process do you use in your evaluation? Judging from the 138 responses, some of you think in terms of constant evaluation while others let the marketplace tell them it’s time. A sampling of responses:

Packaging for Jays salty snacks is undergoing some subtle modernization, both in structure and in graphics. The goals, says new owner Ubiquity Brands, Chicago, are to modernize the appearance of the packages while reinforcing the equity in the venerable brand and to make a stronger brand statement for the different product varieties.

Ubiquity Brands believes strongly in consumer research. “Our consumers told us they loved Jays and felt they ‘owned’ the brand,” says Tom Reynolds, Executive Vice President for Innovation. “They told us they believed it is made locally and so was fresher and had better taste. And the brand’s tagline, ‘Can’t stop eating ‘em!’, is synonymous with the brand.”

The design challenge for Haugaard Creative was keeping as much equity of the existing packaging while contemporizing the look. Transparent inks and a metalized look make the packaging stand out across different products in the line.

Testing showed that consumers felt the reflective packaging indicated a more premium package.

New packaging emphasizes education, speed of product selection, and above all, discretion

When mining ideas for packaging that communicates the product message fast and leads to the correct product selection, few categories offer keener on-shelf insights than absorbent-care products. Within this category, Kimberly-Clark believes it has taken a major step in improving the stature of its Depend brand of absorbent products, ironically by becoming more discreet.

The company’s approach may hold clues for perceptive marketers of other products that attract the fast-growing aging-baby-boomer market.

Both product users and caregivers told Kimberly-Clark researchers that shopping for adult incontinence products is embarrassing. They want to select their product and leave the aisle. Yet, consumers said the packaging confuses them, and in their haste, they often purchase the wrong product.

“Finding the right product solution can add greatly to the quality of their lives, and we don’t want a lack of information, or feelings of embarrassment, to become obstacles in meeting consumers’ needs,” says Tim Lehman, President, Kimberly-Clark Adult and Feminine Care Sector.

Procter & Gamble transforms a functional homecare product into a décor item with the redesign of its Frebreze bottle. Product Ventures designed the new bottle’s swan-like silhouette, and other visual elements.

The design emphasizes shape, texture, and sculptural elements to convey product benefits. The bottle’s sculptural detail of blowing drapes communicates efficacy, fabric friendliness, and outdoor freshness. The swirling contour suggests the circulation of a revitalizing breeze.

Flowing lines and rounded corners distinguish the bottle shape from both hard-surface cleaners and air deodorizers. The water-droplet label signifies cleanliness.

Link: Product Ventures Ltd.

Jolt is providing an electric sales charge to retailers and foodservice operators with its Battery Bottle™, a combination of a bottle and a can that looks like a battery.

“Jolt is a cultural icon” and “America’s most powerful cola with ‘twice the caffeine,’” says CJ Rapp, President and CEO of Wet Planet Beverage, Rochester, NY. The company wanted a value-added package that reflects Jolt’s positioning in an emerging category called New Age beverages.

The new, 23.5-oz container replaces the product’s 20-oz PET bottle. “Fortunately for us—and here we’re thankful to our competitors—the single-serve benchmark price has been elevated from 99 cents to $1.49, and more recently to $1.99,” Rapp explains. “So we don’t think an estimated retail of $1.79 is going to serve as an obstacle to the potential Jolt consumer.”

As sports trading cards have become established as collectibles, card marketers like Topps have upped the ante significantly, both in the types of cards available and in their selling prices. The result is that card marketers and the retailers that sell them want more secure packaging that can’t be opened easily in a store.

Topps has converted some of its collector card lines to BlisterGuard® packaging from Colbert Packaging, printed in four-color process. The package uses bleached board from International Paper in a fold-over format that traps a plastic blister inside. The board is laminated with a high-density polyethylene film from Valeron Strength Films.

Link: Interbrand

Consumers are becoming more discerning in selecting from mid-tier brands in many product categories. They now expect the excitement they find in premium brands. Procter & Gamble, noting this trend in dishwashing liquid, enlisted Interbrand to review the core equities in its Joy brand and develop a package redesign. The results were as follows:

• A whimsical typeface reminiscent of twists of citrus rinds, which leverages the brand’s citrus scent.

• The introduction of a drop-shaped character, “Droppy,” that brings citrus slices “to life” on the label.

P&G says the redesigned package communicates Joy’s attribute of optimism in achieving shiny dishes with a fresh scent.