In This Issue

Simplistic Slowdown: A five-year forecast Simplistic Slowdown is one of the most pervasive socio-cultural movements driving consumer behaviors.

Time for major brands to get game? National brands will have to continually innovate to survive.

Package Gallery

Glass helps winery build a restaurant brand

By Jim George, Editor-in-Chief

Jackson Family Wines, Santa Rosa, CA, has found an inventive way to combine a glass bottle with high-end printing to signal the premium craftsmanship in its Silver Palm Cabernet Sauvignon variety. For this accomplishment, the winery has been recognized with the Overall Package Design award in the 2009 Clear Choice Awards from the Glass Packaging Institute. The package was one of 12 award-winners in the contest.

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Silver Palm's high-end packaging supports the winery's marketing objective of building a premium brand primarily through fine-dining restaurants, says Ryan Kukol, Jackson Family Wines brand manager. The label's signature graphic of a silver-color palm tree is screen-printed in inks containing platinum flakes. "These shine in low-light settings in high-end restaurants. Whereas in retail, you're looking for impact on the shelf with designs having bright colors," Kukol explains.

The palm tree image and brand name are printed on 750-mL bottles by Bergin Glass Impressions. HKA Design worked with the winery on the graphic design, which decorates glass bottles from Saint-Gobain Containers.

The image is heat-applied onto the bottle surface at a very high temperature using a process that makes the printed image scuff-resistant, yet also provides excellent registration to give the palm leaves very high definition, Kukol says.

Shape is another way the bottle signals a high-end product. The bottle is 1 inch taller than typical 750-mL wine bottles, with a slight taper at the shoulder.

"We did this to elevate the quality perception," Kukol says. "The bottle's height is a subliminal way to do it. We tested several design concepts in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta, and Chicago, and the version we chose was overwhelmingly the favorite option among all the consumer groups," he concludes. "It hits on all cylinders. It's very sleek and very contemporary."

To view the other 11 GPI Clear Choice Awards winners, visit www.gpi.org/learn-about-glass/clear-choice-awards/winners/2009-clear-choice-awards-win.html

INTELLIGENCE ON DESIGN Simplistic Slowdown: A five-year forecast By Valerie Jacobs, Group Director, LPK Trends

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Part two of two

Simplistic Slowdown is one of the most pervasive socio-cultural movements driving consumer behaviors. Simplistic Slowdown is all about slowing down and finding fulfillment in each other and redefining values, and what is truly worthwhile. As early as 2004, a shift began from obsession with status, luxury, and celebrity into a state where responsibility, meaning, and more emotive experiences prevailed. Consumers are exhibiting a desire to immerse themselves in stories, authenticity, metaphor, and fantasy. Instead of conspicuous consumption, they look for honesty rather than "reality" and "transparency," constructing narratives with layers of meaning to fulfill a need for fantasy. Read part one.

Several brands reflect the Simplistic Slowdown trend in consumer packaged goods.  Via Roma cleverly displays the use of a narrative on its pasta sauce labels. Each black-and-white label tells a story of the Italian lifestyle through expressive images of people irreverently enjoying life. The Cabernet Marinara label, for example, shows an older woman drinking straight from a bottle of wine. Carluccio's screen-prints directly on its olive and caper jars conveying a handwritten, hand-hewn quality.

Dagoba Organic Chocolate is an award-winning chocolatier honoring Full Circle Sustainability™ principles—quality, ecology, equity, and community—in each step from the rainforest to the shelf. To communicate the brand promise, sumptuous, natural color palettes, underscored by delicate illustrations of ingredients in their natural state, are utilized.

How will consumer behaviors evolve over the next five years? In the food and beverage categories, LPK Trends forecasts an increase in hand-me-down recipes; comfort mixed with culture; revisited and improved classics; strong and evocative flavors (e.g., bacon and bourbon); more visceral and less delicate aesthetics that are more homemade and hand-done; warm or wholesome beverages like coffee, tea, and raw milk that carry tales of provenance; reusable bottles and mugs; and minimized flags, claims, or functional benefit statements.

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In the beauty category, we'll see an "effortless" aesthetic dominate and inconspicuous consumption; less cosmetic surgery and less interest in "reframing" it; a desire for clothing to cover more of the body; an urge to control details at the most minor level despite a look that is less "controlled;" subdued, natural, and tonal palettes, including pastels; multifunctional products; and reusable cosmetic compacts.

In home and surface care there will be a prevalence of less sheen and polish; cozy textures and materials; long-term care of quality accent pieces and fabrics; durable surfaces and multi-functional furniture; refinishing or adapting things to evolve with needs; vintage and retro-inspired, but eclectic and mismatched; and bringing the outside indoors.

Read Valerie Jacobs' entire article.

THINKING IN 360° Time for major brands to get game? By Jim George, Editor

National brands will have to continually innovate to survive. I've heard that observation often in recent months, and it was repeated in September at HBA Global Expo in New York. The context for this statement is that private-label products are selling better than ever, now comprising 20% of grocery store sales in the U.S.

Jonathan Asher, Vice President at Perception Research Services, cites his company's recent research that 40% of U.S. consumers increased their intake of private-label products during the past three months. The gains span all age, economic, and education groups.

Not only is share of market rising for private-label products, but the gains just might hold. At least one recent study says consumers who've made the shift to retailers' brands won't be reverting back when the economy improves. Their reasoning is an increasing perception that private-label products are "as good as" the national brands.

Does this development doom national brands to a future of steady market share decline? Hardly, Asher believes—if product and packaging development teams make a commitment to improving their products and then touting those upgrades on-pack within the context of the brand. Presenting at the HBA show, Asher told his audience to consider Kimberly-Clark as a model to emulate.

"Viva towels has grown from No. 4 to No. 2 in the category over the last three years by being committed to product innovation," Asher noted about Viva's "soft and strong like cloth" paper towels. Packaging artwork whimsically markets the brand with an illustration welcoming consumers to "soak up life."

For national brands that want other examples, observe what retailers in your area are bringing to the shelf. The best of them no longer are content with "me-too" packaging. They are maturing beyond commodities in their own right.