In This Issue

What if…a collapsing bottle could maintain carbonation in soft drinks? One of the greatest drawbacks in buying large volumes of soda is that the carbonation level of the product changes throughout the lifespan of the product.

Moving forward while others idle Can you trust your gut? If so, your brand could make a lot of headway with consumers during these tough economic times while your competitors sit on the sidelines.

Package Gallery

How to succeed in the new ‘store as brand’ world

By Rick Barrack,
Chief Creative Officer/Partner, CBX

Uh-oh, could it be bad news for national brands? It looks like more and more retail stores are finally beginning to “get it.”

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Retailers are increasingly starting to work like independent national brands, not just real estate agents who sell other people’s brands. Nowadays, to retain customer loyalty, stores cannot simply offer low prices. They have to provide better products, better service, and a better experience—in other words, build themselves as a brand and act like a marketer. In doing so, they are focusing on the consumer by making the shopping experience easier, more engaging, and ultimately, more enjoyable.

As stores become more powerful marketing tools, the role of package design has become essential to success. National brands must learn to tell their own story within the new “store-as-brand” paradigm, in which retailers are branding their own store displays and beginning to leave national brands out of the mix.

There is plenty of opportunity for national brands to compete effectively against this surge of private-label brands. One key is providing a meaningful point of difference that elevates the value of

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the national brand in the consumer’s mind. Meaningful brands deliver value beyond products that compete largely in terms of lower price.

Safeway and Procter & Gamble reflect two different approaches to creating value for shoppers. Safeway’s Eating Right brand leverages packaging color and graphics to deliver a single message: good for you. It does so across the brand’s multiple product lines. But national brands have the wherewithal to use packaging to establish category leadership.

P&G is looking to establish a deeper relationship with its consumers. Instead of using the same branding and graphic approach for Tide, Herbal Essences, Febreze, and Charmin, P&G has created unique identities for each brand. The packaging communicates P&G’s expertise within each product category.

The notion of a meaningful difference also extends to the package structure. This is one area where national brands should look for differentiation, because private-label brands often can’t shoulder the costs of more inventive package structures.

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Who is doing it well? Take a look at recent developments in packaging for StarKist.

In response to consumer needs, StarKist introduced tuna in a distinctive package for the category—a retort pouch shelved amid a sea of stacked tuna cans. StarKist’s structural evolution provides several benefits for the consumer. The retort pouches are easy to open, portable, and eliminate the mess associated with draining liquid from a can. And they expand the on-pack billboard.

Beyond addressing multiple consumer needs, the package structure creates more “real estate” for staging and building the brand. Graphics that appeared very small on a can are much larger across the label area of a pouch. The full article.

INTELLIGENCE ON DESIGN What if…a collapsing bottle could maintain carbonation in soft drinks? By Robert Croft, Managing Partner Swerve Inc.—Design for Brands

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One of the greatest drawbacks in buying large volumes of soda is that the carbonation level of the product changes throughout the lifespan of the product. A 2-liter bottle of sparkling soda quickly becomes a mediocre 1-liter bottle of flat, unappetizing syrupy water that is destined to be poured down the kitchen sink.

Conventional thought is that the opening and closing of the package causes the soda to go flat. While this is a contributing factor, the main problem lies in the volume of headspace that is created in the package as the product is consumed. Carbon dioxide quickly migrates to the vacant space, causing the beverage to lose its sparkle.

Ideally, the package should reduce in size as the product is consumed to minimize vacant space inside the bottle. However, the high pressures that carbonated soft drinks (CSD) reach made this unfeasible—until now.

Our idea is for a PET component (depicted in the accompanying illustration) that fits inside the finish of the bottle, and it works in tension to maintain the height of the bottle under pressure. The “stem” acts like a bicycle spoke, telescoping with light downward pressure to reduce the height of the package as the product is consumed.

One-way clicks in the stem prevent the bottle from growing in height as pressure builds inside the package (up to 60 psi on a sunny day). Thus, a 2-liter bottle may collapse proportionally down to 1 liter, and the package always will maintain a constant, minimum headspace.

Although some carbonation is lost as the product is served, the quality of the beverage will be much more consistent. In addition, the minimal nature of the PET component inside the bottle does not significantly affect either package recyclability or cost of goods. If this idea for a CSD bottle goes into production, the very nature of marketing 2-liter (or even 3-liter) carbonated beverages will be redefined. Consumers would have more reason to raise their glasses and say, “Cheers!”

STRATEGICALLY SPEAKING Moving forward while others idle By Jim George, Editor

Can you trust your gut? If so, your brand could make a lot of headway with consumers during these tough economic times while your competitors sit on the sidelines. Even as others in your category are hunkering down, hoping to hold onto what they have until the economy rebounds, opportunity knocks for you on the store shelf.

I’ve written previously in this space about the importance of identifying unmet consumer needs in your category. Those needs haven’t vanished just because some jobs have been eliminated and credit has tightened. Understand those gaps between what consumers need and what your category offers, and you just might come up with a new packaging idea that steals some market share while your competitors idle.

How can you muster the courage to invest new dollars in your packaging at a time when others aren’t? Try following Dona Vitale’s “75%” rule. “Most of us carry an umbrella when the forecast equals a 70% chance of rain,” says Vitale, President of Strategic Focus Inc. and adjunct instructor at the University of Chicago. “So why do we insist on 95% certainty on other things? Trust your gut at 75% and you will make faster and more successful decisions.”

Vitale applies that logic in her consulting work with consumer packaged goods companies such as Kraft, Sara Lee, and SC Johnson. “Create a bias toward action,” she says.

Shelf Impact!, over the next two months, will offer some pivotal strategies for taking action by elevating your brand while others in your aisle slumber. In this newsletter, we focus on succeeding in the world of the store as a brand. In upcoming issues, we will dissect strategies for making sustainability a win-win proposition for both consumers and your brand. In addition, we’ll discuss the ascension of shape in package design—why consumers want more of it, why you should be paying attention, and how you can sell the investment to senior management. For those of you who prefer the feel of the printed page in your hands, these important articles also will appear in our December print issue of Shelf Impact! and Packaging World magazine.

These strategies will require that you trust your gut and take some calculated risks as you squeeze every bit of efficiency out of tight budgets. For those of you who do, the rewards could be a strong edge on shelf when better economic times return.