‘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?

Shelf presence is everything for spirits brands in which the carton is the first billboard that consumers see. For premium brands, the graphics need to be stunning, and Scotland-based Edington Group accomplishes that objective with its high-end Black Grouse Scotch Whisky.

All revved up and ready to go. That's the outlook for a major redesign for Osram Sylvania, which has unveiled a new packaging design for all of its 270 items sold at retail. The customer-friendly packaging redesign strengthens the Sylvania brand, particularly in the competitive automotive aftermarket sector.

When you think of the label's potential broadly, it can wield marketing muscle as a sophisticated and strategic weapon that offers brand managers another way to justify investments in packaging to senior management as a core element of product-marketing efforts. Why? The label's value advances beyond its traditional role as a decorative add-on.

By instituting a liquid-nitrogen injection packaging process, AriZona Beverage Co. has extended the shelf life of its products by 12 to 18 weeks. That change enables the company's inventive promotional products to stay on the shelf longer than normal.

Three brand owners rule more than half the market share in the ready-to-drink tea category—about 57%—but there's plenty of opportunity for the rest of the market, and Polar Beverages is making a run at it with a "fun" brand. The company is introducing Black Jack Beverage tea with razor-sharp graphics to create the "wow" factor on each can.

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.

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.

Packaging plays a key role in authenticating a brand to win over consumer trust.

Shape and functional convenience are two key benefits that give Dead Down Wind Scent Prevent Field Spray shelf distinction and an edge at the point of use.

Digital printing allows for customized packaging, giving marketers the visual impact they need for "in-season" promotional packaging to help build incremental product sales.

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.

Procter & Gamble is extending its Downy Simple Pleasures brand with a new line of "fabric enhancers" marketed under the Radiance Collection subbrand. The three scents in the line are formulated with assistance from perfume houses and delivered through a proprietary technology that deposits microscopic capsules of perfume onto fabrics during the wash/rinse cycles.

Patrick Sbarra is President of New Creature, an in-store marketing and P-O-P display company that helps Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and their suppliers to "sell more stuff." Here, he discusses factors that are impacting in-store packaging decisions.

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

How can packaging raise the bar for exclusive salon products? By positioning them as "lifestyle brands" to drive the overall marketing strategy, both in salons and in homes. Mario Tricoci Hair Salons & Day Spas offers an engaging example of how to do it in exclusive, personal-care products.

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.

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.

In Germany, design's distinctive appeal on a glass bottle has given Bonn-based "true fruits" fruit juices a 72% market share among fruit smoothie drinks sold at gas station convenience stores.

The 250-mL bottles are marked by printed lines that act as visual indicators of the percentage of individual fruit portions contained within. The design emphasizes the clarity of the glass.

"The bottle is an important part of the product," says Marco Knauf, General Manager of true fruits. "It underlines the quality of the content and stands out strongly from the packaging monotony on the store shelves."

O-I designed and developed the flint glass bottle, which uses Applied Ceramic Labeling decoration for the ingredient amount lines and graphics. It's topped by a twist-off metal closure.

Suggested retail price is about $3.50 to $4.25.

White-coated aluminum cans provide the canvas for labels with glitzy graffiti graphics that introduce AriZona Beverages' All City NRG green-tea-based, pomegranate-juice-flavored energy drinks.

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

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

Here's a clever design in pouched microwavable heat-and-serve sauces and gravies. Royco sauces, from Master Foods, a division of Mars, in South Africa, are packaged in retorted pouches. Before microwave heating, the consumer snips the pouch corner for venting and pouring.

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.

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.

Taste appeal is everything for Galliker Dairy Co.'s Galliker's White Tea with Blueberry iced tea brand. Galliker delivers this "curb appeal" with full-body PVC shrink-sleeve labels from Seal-It Inc., a division of Printpack Inc.

The 10-color rotogravure-printed labels feature artwork of an Asian tea-set vignette on a background of pagodas and blueberry graphics.

The print graphics include the Galliker's name in prominent red color. Galliker markets the tea in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia.

Brand managers of healthcare products are beginning to use words like "efficacy" when discussing packaging options for their products—a sign that they view packaging as more than a carrier of the product.

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.

Soul Critic, a flavored malt beverage, is quenching thirsts throughout Mexico with a twist in beverage packaging. A distinctive triple label maximizes visual appeal in convenience stores throughout the country.

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.

Hispanics have purchasing power of $860 billion, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia, and all I get on my package is the translation of the words “black beans” to frijoles negros?

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.

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?

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.

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

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then why do so many brands choose to use so many words to get their message across to the consumer?

Innovation brings women to an aisle in the store—auto care—they don’t normally frequent, and integration of a network of vendors gives Honeywell a ‘virtual factory.’

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?”

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

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.

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

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?

Successfully integrating structural and graphic branding has proved challenging for many product manufacturers. “Do we start with graphics branding and then create a structure around it, or do we create a structure and then start the graphics exploration afterward?” This question is commonly asked at the beginning of the creative process.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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%.

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.

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.

Procter & Gamble created a new product—Swiffer CarpetFlick—for quick and easy carpet cleanups in between vacuuming, and the packaging communicates the convenience message.

Working with design agency LPK, P&G produced a carton bearing a curved, die-cut window to provide a view of the carpet sweeper and four cleaning cartridges inside the package. The color orange differentiates CarpetFlick from other quick-clean products in the Swiffer family.

Three small photographs on the carton’s front panel illustrate the “flick, trap, and toss” cleaning steps using the product. The cartons are printed offset in six colors.

Link: LPK

Not since 1968, when the cartoon series group The Archies’ bubblegum pop ditty Sugar Sugar became a trans-Atlantic No. 1 hit and was pressed into a paperboard-and-vinyl 33 1/3 RPM cut-out record, has the box that the cereal comes in created so much buzz among kids as General Mills’ paperboard iron-on transfer featuring characters from Shrek 2.

At the National Paperbox Association’s packaging competition, the judges were so smitten with the technology that they experimented with the paperboard/dye-sublimation transfer on the host hotel’s pillowcases.

The approach combines the not-so-new process of combining dye-sublimation inks with process inks. When heat is applied to the transfer, the dye-sub ink from the transfer changes to liquid, then to gas, and bleeds into the fabric. General Mills combines each cereal’s brand color set with those of the Shrek characters to render each indistinguishable from the other. Flood-coating the entire box further masks the process.

Baking mixes are intensifying the impact of photography and graphics on packaging in attempts to capture busy consumers’ “share of stomach.” General Mills, in introducing the first new packaging for its Bisquick brand in 10 years, joins this focus on “appetite appeal.”

Mouthwatering photography sets the tone for the brand’s collection of new, versatile dinner recipes. The new, whimsical logo points to a scrumptious photo of the cooked dinner corresponding to the recipe inside the carton. These package elements deliver the message that the brand is more contemporary with current lifestyles.

A hologram on its shippers helps the Honolulu Fish Co. answer two challenges in marketing fresh fish. The first is to establish a brand identity, and the second is to keep fish as fresh as possible while it is air-freighted from Hawaii to the mainland.