In This Issue

HP 'experience designer': Lead consumers by the hande 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."

Harnessing your brand's leadership potential Take a look around your product category for the true leaders. They're not always the brands with the best name recognition, but

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U.S. vs. Europe: The design challenge

By Jonathan Ford, Creative Partner, Pearlfisher

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What are the differences in packaging design between the U.S. and Europe? This is a question that, by implication, prompts another: Which design is best?

The U.S. is generally (as well as historically) regarded as producing bigger, bolder, and brasher designs with large, colorful, and instantly recognizable logos. On the other hand, European design takes a cleaner, simpler, and more modern approach. It uses more visually sensitive and subtle design cues to target a more diverse audience.

This is true to an extent and has previously reflected the cultural and lifestyle values of these territories, with the U.S. prioritizing speed and efficiency, and Europeans preferring a pared-down pace of life and a minimalist aesthetic. As the global marketplace gets smaller, however, and resulting cultural shifts gather momentum, is the U.S. being left behind by blindly treading down the same old design routes? Or, does this line of questioning stereotype U.S. packaging design rather than look at what actually is happening?

I, for one, love visiting all kinds of American stores (not just supermarkets) and taking note of some amazingly fresh packaging ideas. From a firsthand perspective—having studios in both New York and London—I think there is a much more fundamental distinction that can be made between the two forms of design. U.S. design focuses on heartfelt expression while European design delivers intellectual titillation.

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A specific pair of retailers exemplifies this point. The U.K.'s Waitrose chain is famed for its stores, packaging, and design communication (see accompanying photo). All of these elements have been thought through, and they appeal to the discerning consumer who appreciates good food, packaged well, and in an environment where the aisles are cleaner, wider, and fresher by design. Comparatively, in the United States, Whole Foods Market is feted for its stores, its packaging, and its power—an overwhelming sensory overload of all things fresh, natural, and real. The approach is modern, textural, and vibrant in a naturally passionate and exuberant way.

Both approaches meet the needs of the culture they operate in and both recognize the human need for connection. Right now, however, physical touch is just as important as mental touch. The archetypal big-hearted American is right on the money, and brand design per se needs to embrace this idea. My view is that both the Waitrose and Whole Foods chains, as brands, symbolize the way that cross-Atlantic inspiration is indeed two-way and equal. This assessment is based on listening to my U.K. and U.S. retail clients discuss the virtues of each other's offers.

It is a fair assumption that every brand owner aspires to create the next all-important iconic brand. Without a doubt, Europeans are envious of the sheer number of brand icons—and their design kudos—that the U.S. has produced, including Coca-Cola, Apple, Jack Daniels, and Method.

Established brands need to keep using design to update their iconic status and stay fresh on-shelf while newcomers are looking for exciting ways to use design to disrupt the same look and feel. Coca-Cola is one great example of this phenomenon.

The challenge for Coke is living up to its role as a cultural icon, with creative work reflecting this self-awareness and continuously renewing itself in a changing context without losing sight of what it represents. The updates of the core pack design, balanced with interpretive extensions like Coke Blak or the design for the M5 line of five collectable aluminum bottles show how this brand intelligence and self-understanding can be hugely successful. The iconic design reinvents/evolves while still capturing the true spirit and authenticity of the original.

Sitting on shelfs alongside these brands are challenger brands vying for attention and trying to mark out the packaging design landscape of the future.

Icons with heritage are one thing, but the U.S. is built on the foundations of new frontiers. It is in the inherent encouragement of this entrepreneurial spirit that America stays some 30 years ahead of Europe as a haven for challenger brands. Owner-manager businesses tend to be fearless and driven by intuition. Entrepreneurial drive and innovation come naturally to them. They understand that design, at the heart of the brand, can make the big point of difference.

For the challenger brands, it is a question of interpreting where culture is going and building brands in such a way that emerging trends are tapped into, transcended, and redefined for the future. Successful challenger brands have the potential to become iconic because they connect with our new desires for substance of ethos, freshness of attitude, and naturalness of personality.

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The (OOPS) U.S. wine brand broke the category mold and created more impact on-shelf with a unique and ownable look—a bottle wrapped in a sheet of newspaper telling its story. Cleaning-product queen Mrs. Meyer is a great example of U.S. homespun values that are modernized in an engaging way. Method Home Care advocates an equal opportunity for environment and design. These are some of the best "green clean" products one can buy—in bottles crying out to be seen and not hidden under the kitchen sink. At the same time, Nars embraces in cosmetics an iconoclastic philosophy of expressing individual beauty and personality through experimentation and having fun.

Across Europe, package designers are becoming a little overconfident—some may even say arrogant—in thinking we are the best. Still, for every European brand where we see ourselves as better, there is an American one that can match us pound for pound.

And if we are honest, the design high spots in the U.S. can be higher than the U.K.'s, or at least as good. We can tap into this zeitgeist to lead on emotion rather than intellectualism.

Some of the best challenger brands and their packaging come from America. Their desirability of design undoubtedly will become the benchmark by which we judge other brands—iconic or new. And this, in turn, is starting to inspire a "can-do" spirit across Europe and around the world.

HP 'experience designer': Lead consumers by the hand

By Jim George

STEP BY STEP

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." The first time your consumer tries a new experience is key, says Tony Blasio, whose job at HP includes delivering positive package-opening experiences.

"The first time your customer opens your package, their low self-confidence plus uncertainty equals vulnerability," Blasio says. "But vulnerability also presents opportunity."

Consumers' first experience with your product must be successful to get them to purchase your product again. Blasio says some products fail in this quest because the package-opening experience, which includes product set-up, is anything but quick and easy like it should be.

"If they can't do it without it being long or complicated, you need to rethink your approach," he adds, whether it's HP products such as computer printers or any other product that requires an extended "out-of-box" period of emotional engagement.

Blasio offers the following steps to assuring "first-time success" through packaging.

1. Keep it simple. Streamline the process, and strictly limit the consumer's options. Fiercely resist "feature creep," such as overloading consumers with too many features that overly complicate computer software.
2. Provide everything that is needed inside the package. Components include sample materials and design templates. Offer point-of-help instructional assistance other than through manuals, which consumers often don't read.
3. Anticipate lazy behavior and compensate for it. Expect consumers to skim any text, both on the carton and in the manual, and to want to take the easiest path to completing the experience, such as installation. Make it pleasurable by defaulting to the desired experience and requiring them to do extra work to avoid it. Do almost everything for them; let them feel successful, and have some output (such as a printed photo from a printer) for having gone through the process.

STRATEGICALLY SPEAKING Harnessing your brand's leadership potential By Jim George, Editor

Take a look around your product category for the true leaders. They're not always the brands with the best name recognition, but those that truly offer something different in their category—a difference that consumers value.

If you're looking for brands to emulate, note those that position themselves in ways that fall outside the category norm. Lisa Bodell, CEO of futurethink, suggests one exercise that I find intriguing: Identify product innovations that draw inspiration from uncommon connections.

Glad Press'n Seal Sealing Wrap is one example that results from this approach. The product marries the capabilities of competitors Procter & Gamble and Clorox to create a joint venture that combines technology with creative insight. Packaging sells the benefits of the product's sealing technology.

Bodell says your creative team can immerse itself in the journey toward forming uncommon connections by answering a simple question: How can we enhance our product offerings by combining two products into one?

"Life is parallel, not linear, anymore, because we are all multitasking," she says.

At the recent Packaging Summit in Rosemont, IL, Bodell outlined additional ways that leaders find what's next.

1. They identify rules that hamper their creative efforts and then break them. They add some fun by whacking away at their company's "stupid" rules.
2. They "Google" the future by using the Internet search engine often (and including a year as a search attribute).
3. They use search engines to find relevant white papers and conference presentations.
4. They seek out a younger mentor to help them understand and navigate new technologies and online social communities.
5. They associate with people who can teach them something new.
6. They establish a regular "listening day" when they minimize speaking and focus mostly on what others are saying.

Your creative team already is armed with plenty of information, Bodell says. Follow these ideas and you might find a new way to harness product and packaging ideas that evolve your brand into a category leader.