From Chris DeLorenzo, a freelance designer, this concept for Beariez Granola features a package that fits in the hand and has the shape of a bear. Granola expels from the mouth flap at the top of the carton.

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.

When Hillsboro, KS-based Golden Heritage Foods LLC heard the buzz about DreamWorks Animation's feature film, Bee Movie, it jumped at the chance to create a bee-themed promotional package for its honey.

Packages that intuitively inform consumers about the products they contain have an edge in boosting brand sales. A key tactic these packages share is the ability to focus on a single message.

Sometimes, insightful breakthroughs originate from unlikely places. I was reminded of that while listening to Barbara Jirka speak at a conference in Boston last week. Jirka is Channel Marketing Manager for Tyson Foods, and she was presenting at the Kid Power Food and Beverage conference about marketing healthful foods to kids and moms.

If kids and moms are core audiences for your brand, IQPC’s Kid & Mom Power Food & Beverage 2008 conference is for you, This is the 9th annual conference, and the theme is Creating Winning Campaigns for Moms that Excite Kids in Today’s Modern Health Age.
The event will be Jan. 29 through Feb. 1, 2008, at the Hyatt Harborside Hotel, Boston, MA. Shelf Impact! is a media partner for the conference.

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.

Increasingly, it appears that products with a strong focus on simple packaging resonate best with consumers. However, the trick for packaging is to provide a relatively complicated solution in a very simple way. It’s even better when the solution is a bit playful.

That’s the case with My Dolmio Creamy Tomato Sauce from Masterfoods. Sold in the U.K. and Ireland, My Dolmio pasta sauces come in single-serve stand-up pouches. Of course, in the United States we would never have a product that also requires consumers to prepare pasta as a simple after-school snack, but that concept seems to work in the U.K. Kids cut open the pouch, pop it into the microwave, heat, remove, and pour. That’s where simplicity comes in.

Two features on this pouch help ensure success for kids and teens. First, the pouch’s curved “pitcher” shape helps ensure that when the container is opened, the heated contents will be less likely to “spurt out.” Second is the playful part. A thumbprint and the copy say “Hold me from here.” The pouch’s seal is wider in this area so that kids and teens can grab it there without burning their fingers—the sealed portion stays cool.

What a fun and easy-to-use package!

- By Lynn Dornblaser, Mintel International From Package Design magazine

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

Where does Disney Consumer Products get the inspiration for its packaging? Sheila Ullery, Health and Beauty Director, mentioned at the HBA Expo in September that Disney creates the image first and then builds products and packaging around it. This approach is in stark contrast to most consumer goods companies, which create the product first, then try to figure out an image to go with it.

If you make health foods fun through creative marketing, will kids swallow it?

When I'm around great packaging, I turn into a giddy geek. My wife says I act like a little boy who finds a morbid joy in zapping ants with a magnifying glass on a sunny day. That’s why I connected quickly with the Little Learners Bug Catcher—I immediately “got it.”

The Little Learners Bug Catcher turns into a highly functional toy after the “dirt” and bug candy are consumed, and kids “get it” right away on the shelf. The package’s primary appeal is neon green worms and fire engine red ants flexo-printed on a transparent PVC shrink label. It is obvious to any adolescent boy that the gummy worms and ants packed inside are digging through chocolate cookie meal “dirt.”

What pushes the food-grade PET container over the top is its polypropylene lid holding two hinged magnifying glasses. After kids eat the spade-shovel portion of “dirt” in one overstuffed mouthful and play with and then eat the worms and ants, the container becomes a holding pen for bugs, grubs and spiders.

A survey of 308 school-age children in four markets found that 94% of them preferred to drink milk from a plastic bottle rather than a paper carton.

A majority of the students said the plastic bottle is easier to open and drink from, and they perceived that milk tastes better when consumed from a plastic bottle. The students indicated that plastic bottles are more convenient to use, even though the traditional gable-top carton has, in recent years, added convenience features such as spouts.

Those findings are from a recent study conducted by Peryam & Kroll Research Corp. on behalf of the National Dairy Council.

Among the specific findings:

• Some 83% of school children said that milk in the plastic bottle was “better overall,” compared with the identical brand of milk packaged in a paper carton.

• About 86% of school children said the plastic bottle was “easier to drink from.”

• Some 67% of school children said the plastic bottle was “easier to open” than the paper carton.

According to Dairy Management Inc., more than one million students in 1,500 schools nationally drink milk in plastic packaging and in multiple flavors. This compares with about 400 schools that offered milk in plastic packaging during the 2003-2004 school year.

Gerber continues the trend toward foam-dispenser packaging in personal care products by restaging multiple SKUs with instant-foam-dispensing technology under the Grins & Giggles Foaming Baby Wash for Hair and Body brand.

Convenience drives the package design, which includes a pump from Airspray International and a custom 250-ml bottle, and transparent blue overcap. The pump expels instant, creamy no-drip foam and requires one hand to operate. This benefit eliminates the need for rubbing product into the skin to create lather. It enables parents to hold the baby easily and safely.

Links: Colbert Packaging
International Paper
Valéron Strength Films
Brookdale Plastics

When Topps Inc. sought secure packaging for its collector trading cards, it decided on a paperboard-and-film lamination. Topps selected Colbert Packaging’s BlisterGuard® security package.

Film from Valéron Strength Films is laminated to paperboard from International Paper (IP). IP extrusion-coats the inside of the fold-over card for secure heat seals, then Colbert’s Just Pack It plant applies security sensors to the board. After Colbert offset prints the cardstock in four colors, it is sealed to polyvinyl chloride blisters from Brookdale Plastics.