In This Issue

Positioning your company for growth—the future of packaging If someone asked you where packaging is headed over the next decade, you'd probably have a tough time answering.

Why Coke, Tide, and Kraft thrive The growth of private-label brands is keeping managers of national brands awake at night.

Package Gallery

Sucrets cartons challenge kids to contemplate global warming

By Anne Marie Mohan, Senior Editor, Packaging World

As corporate social responsibility becomes a key market differentiator for consumer packaged goods companies committed to sustainability, a slew of cause campaigns have emerged that cleverly employ packaging and product attributes to engage the consumer in greater environmental or social awareness.

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One example is Purina Cat Chow, which has partnered with the Susan G. Koman for the Cure breast cancer organization in the Purina Cat Chow Connected for the Cause campaign. The program uses a dedicated Web site and limited-edition pink packaging to convey its message. Another example, Procter & Gamble's Dawn dish detergent, employs endearing wildlife images on its bottles to promote its Everyday Wildlife Champions program.

Just in time for winter cold season, Sucrets has now launched its Save the Polar ICE Caps! Challenge in collaboration with Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment's Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs characters. Elements of the campaign include new Sucrets ICE single-serve frozen ice pops packaging decorated with Ice Age characters; a call to action for kids to draw and describe what they would do to save the polar ice caps from global warming; and a Web site with lots of links for environmental education.

The new Sucrets ICE product is co-branded with Ice Age animated film characters for cause campaign directed at kid-inspired solutions to global warming.

"From big ideas like solar-powered cars and windmills, to simple ideas like energy-saving light bulbs and reusable shopping bags, we want kids to use their imaginations while thinking through a real-world issue affecting them today and undoubtedly in the future," says Mike Tukdarian, President, Insight Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Sucrets ICE. "Participating in the Save the Polar ICE Caps! Challenge is an opportunity for kids to learn more about the ways to slow down the environmental effects of global warming, and to win a chance to see these lessons come to life."

Contest entries will be displayed online, where five finalists will be chosen via public vote to take place in early 2010. The grand prize winner will receive a visit to their classroom by an animator from Fox's Blue Sky Studios, who will create a still-scene image of the winner's submission.

Says Joe Ames, Executive Director of Global Marketing Partnerships for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, "This is another great example of how entertainment marketing can really make a brand stand out in a cluttered retail and advertising marketplace."

INTELLIGENCE ON DESIGN Positioning your company for growth—the future of packaging By Mike Richmond, president, Packaging & Technology Integrated Solutions

If someone asked you where packaging is headed over the next decade, you'd probably have a tough time answering. The packaging scene is so dynamic; who can predict every twist and turn it's likely to take?

But not knowing the answer to such a question doesn't change one fundamental fact: Come what may, it's your job to be ready. You'd better be prepared to be a leader and a winner.

Just look at the changes we've seen taking place in the packaging sector. Packaging's move from being a cost center to being a profit center for organizations across the value chain is among those changes. And how about the growth of private-label packaging? Who would ever have thought that private-label packs would commercialize consumer packaging benefits before branded packs? Look no further than Archer Farms' innovative canisters for its line of ready-to-eat cereals or Archer Farms' potato chip packs that have a reclosable zipper.

And what about the shelf impact of packaging, also known as the First Moment of Truth, because this is where consumers have their first encounter with the product/package at the retail shelf? Today's package designers have gotten so good at creating impact on the shelf that you have to wonder what can be tried next.

As if all of this weren't quite enough, there's more: sustainability, transparency, open innovation, global sourcing, safety and security, modeling and simulation, and outsourcing, to name a few.

Do you know where packaging is going in the future? Does your company recognize the importance of packaging? Are you concerned about private-label packaging? Retailers, do you know where packaging will go and grow in the future?

Read Mike Richmond's complete article and related packaging articles from The Insiders.

THINKING IN 360° Why Coke, Tide, and Kraft thrive By Jim George, Editor

The growth of private-label brands is keeping managers of national brands awake at night. But the surge of retailers' brands isn't occurring uniformly across all categories. In fact, national brands still dominate some categories with an iron fist. Consider Coca-Cola, Tide, and just about any of the Kraft subbrands.

Do you ever wonder what makes them king of their categories? A yearlong shopper-experience study by The Integer Group and M/A/R/C Research attempts to answer that by identifying the brands that consumers would least likely trade for private-label products.

Besides improving the packaging for their store brands, retailers also are smart enough to identify categories in which one or two dominant national brands are king of the castle. Retailers are tending to focus the growth of their own brands in categories lacking a dominant brand.

What makes Coca-Cola, Tide, and Kraft so dominant? In some cases, it's distinctive packaging. But it's also product quality and brand recognition. Perhaps more important, these brands are authentic; consumers trust them.

Product quality, distinctive and functional packaging, and trust are three critical legs of the stool that all need to be addressed to compete effectively against the surge of private-label brands. Coca-Cola, Tide, and Kraft seem to have figured it out better than most, and they warrant closer inspection for any national brand looking to provide a stronger counterpoint to store brands as retailers continue to find new ways to make their stores destinations in 2010.