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Wal-Mart consultant: Retailers' new in-store strategies will impact packaging Wal-Mart is one retailer that's recapturing its own stores by being creative inside the box.

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Sylvania's enlightened redesign overhauls 270 items, embraces sustainability

By Rick Lingle, Packaging World

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.

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The packaging redesign includes five tiers of products from standard to SilverStar Ultra for products from headlights to auxiliary bulbs. A number of variables factored into a new packaging look, says Denise Champagne, Osram Sylvania's Marketing Manager.

"Our goal was to redesign the packaging to mirror the premium traits of each one of our aftermarket products," Champagne says. "The clean, crisp designs form an identity for each of our products that will easily alert anyone purchasing a Sylvania light about its outstanding features. These new graphics will help educate consumers on the fact that they have choices when it comes to automotive lighting products."

"The new packaging is eye-catching and makes it much easier for consumers to understand which product is best-suited for their needs," says Carol Pregger, Principal Packaging Engineer for Automotive Lighting. "We are now using colorful, value-proposition icons on the front and back of our packages, denoting levels of brightness, down-road sight distances, and increased peripheral vision. These symbols help distinguish our products' best performance attributes."

Design firm Wallace Church collaborated with Osram Sylvania to conduct consumer research and help define the core of the brand identity. The printing method is offset lithography in three to five colors. Premium products have additional embellishments such as hot foil stamping and embossing, achieved with the help of prepress vendor Boston Color Graphics.

One objective was to minimize the packaging's environmental impact. Osram Sylvania achieved that goal by using a recycled-content board. Most of the polyvinyl chloride blisters continue to be made from a recycled-content material.

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Osram Sylvania notes that the majority of primary, secondary, and tertiary packaging specifications changed as a result of this project. Secondary and tertiary packaging were revised to significantly increase cube efficiency, effectively saving fuel by allowing more packaged product to fit in a truck. The company expects that "up to a 78% cubic volume reduction" and associated fuel savings will be realized.

Overall, the new changes will reduce the amount of plastic in the packaging by having products encased in contoured, tighter blisters, instead of large, loose-fitting plastic windows. The blisters also make for a more theft-resistant package, according to the company.

All products are packaged in thermoformed PVC blisters that fit the bulb contours more closely, wasting less space and reducing blister gauges, Sylvania states. The company estimates the new design is reducing blister material by about 40% across its product line.

The packaging structure for many items changed from a face-seal to a trapped-seal package. Two pieces of paperboard trap the thermoform's flange, making it easier for consumers to later separate the materials for recycling. Osram Sylvania says the items offer a significant associated reduction in total package cube as defined by the Wal-Mart Sustainability Scorecard, allowing for more efficient transportation, and thus, fuel savings.

All the packaging components are supplied through J&J Packaging.

Osram Sylvania relied on consumer research and retailer input during the package redesign for the bulbs, which range from $9.99 to $49.99. In prelaunch tests, the company found that 97% of consumers tested were willing to trade up to premium products when viewing the new packaging and merchandising concepts.

Wal-Mart consultant: Retailers' new in-store strategies will impact packaging

By Jim George, Editor-in-Chief

Wal-Mart is one retailer that's recapturing its own stores by being creative inside the box, says Patrick Sbarra, President of New Creature, an in-store marketing design company. Sbarra told an audience at the HBA Global Expo earlier this month in New York City that the nearly $400 billion retailing giant has begun a gradual program to clean up its main aisles and improve sight lines, and brand marketers should be prepared to adjust.

Sbarra is close to the action at Wal-Mart. His company works closely with suppliers to the nation's leading retailer. Sbarra noted several developments that could have significant implications for packaging:

• Wal-Mart is clearing central aisles as it begins to retrofit its 3,700 stores. Personal care aisles are moving closer to grocery aisles—and next to the pharmacy. The idea is to make it as easy as possible for time-crunched consumers to shop quickly. That is a notable shift from traditional retail thinking, which holds the belief that staple household products merchandised in the back of the store force shoppers to walk through or past other departments, where they often make additional purchases.
• Cleared sight-lines will make it easier to view end-aisle displays. Sbarra recommends designing packaging to be viewed from a distance at all angles on these displays.
• Wal-Mart is beginning to opt away from using some brand owner graphics on pallet and corner displays and instead requesting brand owners and designers to create visuals that reflect the retailer's stores as a brand. Other retailers will follow Wal-Mart's lead, Sbarra says. In general, he urges brand owners to collaborate with both competitors and noncompetitors to create new concepts that "maverick" stores in a retailer's chain will embrace. Ask yourself this question: What can we do together to drive our category?

It's also more critical than ever, Sbarra says, to pay attention to the store environment in which your packaging resides.

"Visit the place. Whatever store your customer shops in, the retailers all have their own moments of truth," Sbarra says in explaining retailers' current strategic thinking.

"See the light behind you. Smell the store. See it at different times of the day. The thing you design looks great on the conference room table, but what does it look like in the store?"