BECAUSE THE PACKAGE IS THE BRAND
JAN/FEB 2012
League Champion Playful package helps Cheerios check rivals in competition
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Pouch pairs good wine with the good life New package and label substrates The evolution of private-label branding A heavenly new look for MoonPie PACKAGEDESIGNMAG.COM
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Contents
Jan/feb 2012 Vol. 10 No. 1
columns 16 Designer’s Corner by Robert Bergman Take advantage of the energy of a new year to invigorate your package designs with a powerful modernism.
20 Sustainably Speaking
22
by Wendy Jedlicka Edible packaging offers food for thought.
Features
DEPARTMENTS
22
Sweet Rewards
4 Editor’s Letter
A colorful new look rockets MoonPie sales to new frontiers.
6 Front Panel
The House Wins
10 Snapshots
Retailers refine their private-label packages to elevate their brands.
42 Product Focus: Package and Label substrates
28 32
Carton Creativity The National Paperboard Packaging Competition winners show an outstanding attention to detail.
34
Toast the Day Alternative wine package pairs good wine with the good life.
38
47 datebook 47 Index of Advertisers
12
48 Globespotting by Lynn Dornblaser Coffee brand uses a flexible canister to distinguish its single-serve pods from the competition.
The Need for Speed Five ways designers use data-driven systems to pick up the pace and stay on top of details.
This month on PackageDesignMag.com n
http://www.packagedesignmag.com/
on the cover The limited-edition Cheerios box captured the National Paperboard Package of Year award from the Paperboard Packaging Council (PPC) for its intricate design, which includes a pop-out hockey game. Read more about the Cheerios Bring on the Gold 2010 Olympics Hockey Shoot Out box and the other PPC award winners on page 32.
january/february 2012
Will mobile technology replace eco-labels? mobiletech
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Sleek sauce bottle design wins international design contest http://www.packagedesignmag.com/ sleeksaucebottle
FROM THE EDITOR
by Linda casey
Healing Touch I
t’s not every day that you hear a packaging idea that could save lives. But that’s exactly the gift that Ben Miyares, Packaging Management Institute managing director and Package Design editorial advisory board member, shared with me this January. Inspired by a recent technology demonstration by packaging supplier Innovia Films and logic circuit manufacturer PragmatIC Printing of a successful integration of electronics onto a printed label made from a common type of polyester, Miyares suggested that the packaging concept could be developed for pharmaceutical compliance applications. The reason I share Miyares’ excitement was that Innovia Films’ and PragmatIC Printing’s blinking bottle labels are a touch different from electronic labels we’ve seen in the past. The prototype’s variable display—a sequence of flashing lights—is activated when the bottle is held. It has an intuitive user interface. A look at the consumer electronics world shows us how important an intuitive user interface can be. Most folks, whether they carry an Android, BlackBerry, or iOS device, acknowledge that Steve Jobs changed the mobile phone category forever when he unveiled the iPhone in 2007. But the idea of phones that run applications wasn’t new. Long before 2007, Nokia fans were downloading apps for their Symbian OS phones. And the idea of electronic pharmaceutical compliance packaging isn’t new, either. Today, there are fully commercialized blister card and carton systems that use electronics to encourage and track whether people are taking their medicine correctly and on time. But the complexity of these systems sometimes requires more effort than taking the medicine itself. If the technology could be refined to respond to touch the way modern smartphones do, it could actually get patients to use their compliance packaging and take their medication—thus saving lives. And more than patients and pharmaceutical package designers could benefit from the technology. It could be adapted to create on-shelf, interactive marketing experiences that would make QR codes look primitive in comparison. The key would be making interactive packaging not such a pill.
Stay in touch with us by: Email: linda.casey@stmediagroup.com LinkedIn: Package Design Magazine Facebook: Packagedesign Mag Twitter: packagedesignmg (no “a” in “mg”)
january/february 2012
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Editorial Department Editor-in-Chief Linda Casey linda.casey@stmediagroup.com Contributing editor Patrick Henry pat.henry@stmediagroup.com Art Director Laura Mohr laura.mohr@stmediagroup.com Production Coordinator Linda Volz 513-263-9398 linda.volz@stmediagroup.com Sales Department Publisher Julie Okon 317-564-8475 / Fax: 513-744-6909 julie.okon@stmediagroup.com associate Publisher John T. Lyons III 770-955-2923 / Fax: 610-296-1553 john.lyons@stmediagroup.com Corporate Staff President Tedd Swormstedt Design group director Kristin D. Zeit Package Design Subscription Services P.O. Box 1060 Skokie, IL 60076 P: (847) 763-4938 F: (847) 763-9030 PD@halldata.com Reprints / e-Prints / Plaques Mark Kissling 513-263-9399 mark.kissling@stmediagroup.com
PACKAGE DESIGN (ISSN 1554-6772) is published 10 times annually by ST Media Group International Inc., 11262 Cornell Park Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45242-1812. Telephone: (513) 421-2050, Fax: (513) 362-0317. No charge for subscriptions to qualified individuals. Annual rate for subscriptions to non-qualified individuals in the U.S.A.: $48 USD. Annual rate for subscriptions in Canada: $76 USD (includes GST & postage); all other countries: $98 (Int’l mail) payable in U.S. funds. Printed in the U.S.A. Copyright 2012, by ST Media Group International Inc. All rights reserved. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the consent of the publisher. The publisher is not responsible for product claims and representations. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Package Design, P.O. Box 1060, Skokie, IL 60076. Change of address: Send old address label along with new address to Package Design, P.O. Box 1060, Skokie, IL 60076. For single copies or back issues: contact Debbie Reed at (513) 263-9356 or Debbie.Reed@STMediaGroup. com. Subscription Services: PD@halldata.com, Fax: (847) 763-9030, Phone: (847) 763-4938, New Subscriptions: www.packagedesignmag. com/subscribe.
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FRONT PANEL
Snacks and Society A potato chip package study details distinctions in food marketing messages.
Joshua Freedman
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hen Stanford University linguists Joshua Freedman and Dan Jurafsky studied packaging for the humble potato chip, they found that the package designs spoke volumes about marketing to different social classes. Package Design posed three questions about the study for Freedman to nosh on, and here’s what he had to say.
PD: Why did you choose potato chip package designs for a study about advertising and social class? Freedman: We wanted a food item that was readily available and consumed by a variety of consumers across different social classes. Potato chips are, in many ways, the ultimate classic American snack food, and each bag of chips has a promotional product description on the bag. For a linguistic study, this description offered a perfect place to focus our analysis.
What did you learn? We discovered that more expensive potato chips placed a greater emphasis on health qualities than did less expensive potato chips. For example, though none of the chips in our study contained trans fats,
january/February 2012
100% of the more expensive chips noted this, while only one-third of the less expensive chips did so. Also, expensive chips describe themselves by what they are not: “no trans fats,” “no cholesterol,” “never fried,” etc. We found, on average, 14 instances of negation on expensive chip packaging but only three on inexpensive chip packaging. This finding supports the theory that upper class tastes are heavily defined by the idea of distinction. Third, we discovered that all chips seek “authenticity,” but that authenticity has two distinct forms. Expensive chips aim to be authentic by focusing on “naturalness.” Authenticity means real ingredients and hand-made processes for these brands. Inexpensive chips try to prove authenticity through an emphasis on history and location, with old-fashioned recipes and familiar locations.
Were any of these findings surprising? The idea of authenticity came about as we grappled with what the language on these chips was really trying to get at. The ramifications of this finding are also large: these two distinct forms of authenticity help frame many of the attitudes in our society towards the choices we make, ranging from what we eat to what we buy to whom we vote for.
Game Changer
Gimme Shelter Two facts inspired architecture group I-Beam Design to imagine a very different end-of-life scenario for used packaging pallets: there are 33 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world, and 700 million wooden shipping pallets are produced in the U.S. each year. Knowing that 84% of the world’s refugees could be housed with a year’s supply of American pallets, the architecture group designed a 250-sq.-ft. concept home made from 100 recycled pallets. Pallets used for shipments of food, medicine, and other types of aid can be transformed into a home by as few as five people using hand tools. Draping the basic structure prevents water penetration into the temporary home. Alternately, locally available materials can be used to fill wall cavities and cover the roof, transforming the transitional shelter into a permanent home.
Shopperception is a Microsoft Kinect-based system that brings real-life analytics to retail environments. The 3-D spatial-recognition market research tool was developed by Agile Route (Buenos Aires, Argentina). “When the MS Kinect came out, we—as techies— were thrilled,” says Ariel Di Stefano, vice president of Agile Route. “It was sci-fi at our fingertips. We started analyzing what to do with it, and the real click came while we were talking to someone in the market research industry about how they do their research—with a human observer, a paper form, and a pen.” Agile’s system, which is slated for rollout in March 2012, automates data gathering in stores—essentially delivering for retail what Google Analytics does for the Web. Designers can use the system to perform real-world A/B tests to measure shoppers’ reactions using metrics such as the average time in front of the shelf, conversion rates, return rates, and pick-up rates.
FAST FACT
$2.8 Billion
Estimated worth of the global bioplastics market in 2018. The market growth will be driven by advances in material-converting technology that will allow manufacturers to lower prices and better compete against conventional plastics. New technologies will also shake up how the bioplastics market is segmented. Biodegradable plastics currently dominate the market, with an approximate 92% share. Biobased, nonbiodegradable plastics will snatch a larger share of the market, growing their market share from less than 10% just two years ago to more than 47% in 2018. — Source: “Market Study: Biopl astics,” a report from Ceresana Research
PACKAGEDESIGNMAG.COM
FRONT PANEL
BOOKS
Naturally Inspired Industry of Nature from Frame Publishers describes 75 strategies that nature has developed in response to needs such as protection, strength, aerodynamics, and camouflage, and depicts those strategies with photography and illustration. “Most of the strategies can be applied to any discipline, from product design to packaging design,” says Sarah de Boer-Schultz, book editor for Frame Publishers. The strategies that apply specifically to package design include the glassmaking ability of diatoms—unicellular marine organisms with cell walls made of silica—which inspired a bottle design with thin layers of protective surface glass.
Sustainable Standout A new compostable pouch clearly communicates the nutritional benefits of Steve’s Real Dog Food (Murray, UT). The frozen pet food company moved to the new biobased standup pouch for its high shelf impact and its correspondence with the company’s social responsibility philosophy. The eco-conscious packaging, manufactured by Eagle Flexible Packaging (Batavia, IL), is made in the U.S. and replaces poly bags made in China. The pouches are printed with low-VOC, waterbased inks and adhesives with a design created by Nicole Lindsley, project manager at Steve’s Real Food, to help pet owners quickly identify varieties in retailers’ freezers. The packages are sealed with Press-to-Close zippers from Zip-Pak (Manteno, IL) that are made from the same biobased plastic as the pouch. Since the redesign, the brand has experienced strong growth. Lindsley says that October 2011 sales were up 40% over sales for October 2010 and that she believes the new packaging will help fuel further growth.
DESIGN REWIND
Sweet, Vendible Fun The Mickey Mouse PEZ candy dispenser made its U.S. debut in the early 1960s, and it was soon followed by other Disney-inspired dispensers. Throughout the 1960s and the following decade, the candy containers were available for purchase from vending machines. To ensure the dispensers and their candies would vend smoothly from the machines, they were packed in simple, rectangular cartons with colorful designs aimed to appeal to children. PD
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
Live area : 7.75" X 10.5"
Trim size : 8" X 10.875"
Bleed Size: 8.25' X 11.2"
SNAPSHOTS
Crowd Pleaser An innovative product and its packaging showcase the skills of a collaborative design community.
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argeting the eco-conscious crowd, Cuppow (Somerville, MA) offers a novel way for consumers to forgo disposable coffee cups and bulky travel mugs: a lid that transforms a mason jar into a portable cup. Like the product itself, Cuppow’s packaging is smart, functional, and eco-friendly. “All the design elements chosen for Cuppow’s packaging are a pure expression of the product ethos—boldness, efficiency, simplicity, and the utmost respect for all materials used,” says package designer and illustrator Natalya Zahn. The package is converted from a sheet of raw, single-weight chipboard, without sealing adhesives. “The single-fold design allows the package to neatly sandwich the product, requiring only a simple diecut tab at the back to anchor Cuppow from rotation,” Zahn says. The package design uses only two spot colors for its text and illustrations, which were printed by Mike Dacey of Repeat Press using an old-school letterpress machine. Zahn makes good use of the printing process’s strong, crisp imprints, and tactile
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
qualities to create a look with plenty of pop and a decidedly technical feel. Product instructions are conveyed quickly. Basic black dominates the design, providing good contrast with the natural brown of the unbleached chipboard. Bright orange is used sparingly. Where the product and package were developed is as much a testament to collaborative creativity as how. Nearly all the components—industrial design, branding, graphics, and package design, printing, photography, and more—were created by a collaborative of creatives called Fringe, in a multidisciplinary workspace located in the heart of Union Square in Somerville. Its 4,400 sq. ft. of converted warehouse is home to 13 small businesses and artist studios. Cuppow was launched in January 2012, and the product has already sold out of its initial production run. Additional orders have been placed with Cuppow’s co-manufacturer to fulfill both its online orders and its growing retail distribution network.
Delicious Wit Frozen pizza uses humor to woo health-conscious consumers.
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s the first pizza chain accredited for gluten-free food service by the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America, Garlic Jim’s (Everett, WA) prides itself on creating delicious meals for the estimated 18 million people in the U.S. who are sensitive or allergic to gluten. When the brand wanted to introduce its gluten-free pizzas to mainstream retailers’ freezers, it sought to engage potential consumers in a virtual conversation about its belief that food that’s good for you can also taste good. To kick-start these conversations, Garlic Jim’s partnered with design agency Hornall Anderson (Seattle, WA). The agency skipped the front-of-pack beauty shots typical of frozen pizza packaging and instead created copy-heavy designs with a fun type treatment reminiscent of bumper stickers. Humorous slogans and tongue-in-cheek messaging stress owning and embracing the gluten-free lifestyle instead of being apologetic for it. The design is executed beautifully by AllpakTrojan (Renton, WA), which litho-printed the paperboard (litho laminate on e-flute corrugated) with bold blocks of color to make the packages pop even from behind frosted freezer doors.
The new packaging has produced “extremely positive feedback from all levels of retail sales,” says Garlic Jim’s CMO Max Clough. It’s credited with an incremental sales lift of 25% to 30% beyond the products’ projected natural growth curve. The brand, currently localized in western Washington State, is anticipating a larger regional rollout, with hopes of national expansion.
Right on Target
Panasonic gets back on track with a contemporary look.
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hen Panasonic’s Progressives line of women’s shavers was dropped from Target shelves, the brand embarked on a package redesign project to win back the retailer’s affections. To develop the new look—one that would embrace a more modern customer—Panasonic (Kadoma, Japan) turned to The Goldstein Group (New York, NY). The agency first evaluated the target market of women from their 20s to 40s to see what would resonate best. It then closely examined Target’s specific style and decided to emulate the clean and minimal designs found in the retailer’s specialty brands and displays. Next, The Goldstein Group scouted the leading competition. “Remington’s outer structure is more sophisticated; it’s not just in a clamshell blister. The Clio fits in your pocket. It’s on trend. Braun is in a beautiful jewel red box with an ethereal light. Braun is all about lifestyle, aspiration,” says Terri Goldstein, founder and principal of the Goldstein Group. “Meanwhile, Panasonic was very pink, very ’80s.” On the color spectrum, the agency felt that Remington owned blue; Clio, pink and blue; Braun, red and white. So for Panasonic, a new color palette was introduced: a high-fashion mix of black, white, silver—and a touch of its old pink for brand equity. Panasonic’s Wellness Group presented the refreshed packaging to Target last year, adding a new name (Close Curves) to the look. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with the retailer not only welcoming the product line back, but giving it prominent shelf space. PACKAGEDESIGNMAG.COM
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SNAPSHOTS
Protective Royal Nutrition Treatment Packaging technology delivers a fresh way to take your vitamins.
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arma Culture LLC (Pittsford, NY) believes it has a better way to take your vitamin drink—and it’s all about the packaging. “After 90 days on a shelf, premixed drinks may have only 30% to 50% of their vitamins remaining,” says CJ Rapp, the company’s CEO and co-founder. His solution: the KarmaCap, a proprietary bottle top that keeps vitamins and other essential ingredients protected and separate from water until it’s time to drink. Made of polypropylene, the KarmaCap uses a spin-weld fitting to produce an airtight seal between the cap and base. It also provides UV protection for the vitamins, ensuring freshness, and delivering maximum vitamin potency. The caps top square PET bottles that offer differentiation on shelf, and the 18-fl.-oz. bottles sport transparent shrink sleeves printed in bright colors by Hammer Packaging (Rochester, NY). The labels were designed by Karma Culture and Mason Selkowitz Marketing to appeal to a target market of health-conscious consumers aged 24 to 54. It has an understated design that conveys the product’s key nutritional benefits, details how to release the vitamins from the cap into the bottle, and encourages potential consumers to visit the brand’s website via a QR code. Initial distribution includes major food, grocery, specialty, and convenience stores across New York, including Wegmans Food Markets and Tops Friendly Markets. 12
january/february 2012
Delicate details reinforce vodka’s super-premium market positioning.
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pirits distributor Calibre Brands Ltd. (London) has unveiled a redesigned Snow Queen Vodka, created by design agency Cartils (London). The brand’s Snow Queen icon received refinements in her dress and hair. Other graphic elements—including medals from the spirit’s awards—were repositioned to give more prominence to the queen, which results in stronger overall branding to help the bottle stand out on shelf. The words “organic vodka” were added to the brand mark to spotlight a key product differentiator. The purity of the drink is then visually conveyed through the snowstorm that makes up the skirt of the queen’s dress.
The matte, frosted bottle was slightly increased in height, and a cork closure was added to ensure super-premium positioning. The overall bottle shape also received an overhaul with raised shoulders and a thin neck to present a prouder, more regal image. To encourage purchase of the spirit as a luxurious gift, Cartils also designed an opulent gift box featuring glossy, white paperboard stock; finely litho-printed graphics; and hot-stamped gold foil finishing.
Cosmetic Enhancements Sephora Favorites get a facelift.
S
ephora Favorites holiday collections of perfumes and cosmetics have been introducing consumers to the Sephora (Billancourt, France) store experience for more than five years. And much of the collections’ success can be attributed to a packaging format that was innovative when first developed by the cosmetics giant and its packaging supplier Vivabox USA Inc.(Gaithersburg, MD), a business unit of Sodexo. “Inevitably, though, a successful product attracts copycats,” says Jon Dean, president of Vivabox USA Inc. To push its collections’ distinctiveness even further, Sephora returned to Vivabox and directed the agency to create a new, more interactive package-opening experience. “We wanted to come up with a compelling way to showcase the assortment inside,” says Jessica Hanson, director of merchandising, fragrances,
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Sephora USA Inc. (San Francisco). The result is a gatefold box that imparts the feeling of pulling open a pair of doors and entering a retail store. Vivabox added luxurious layers of printing and effects to the box to play up the store experience. Five different finishes were used: metallic coating, color varnish over the metallic coating, two layers of white masking, four-color printing, and a UV clear coat with glitter embedded. Hanson says that Sephora was very impressed with the results.
SNAPSHOTS
Conveniently Delicious Colorful pouches highlight snacks’ taste appeal in a grab-and-go format.
W
ith the launch of three new Rainforest Cookie flavors, Lesley Stowe Fine Foods (Vancouver, BC, Canada) also unveiled a new packaging system for the entire product line. The natural foods company partnered with Subplot Design to create the packaging range that would prominently display the cookies’ whole grain ingredients. Emphasizing both Lesley Stowe and Raincoast Cookies was also a priority. “It was clear that any new product would need to build off that existing equity and recognition of the Raincoast Cookies,” says Subplot Design principal Roy White. “Not only in name, but in the presentation of the product through the packaging.” To maximize name recognition, Subplot designed a dark brown color bar with the words “Lesley Stowe’s Raincoast Cookies” printed in reverse. The color bar is placed on every cookie variety pouch and never strays from its brown-andwhite color scheme. The agency also suggested a large front window on the pouch’s front in an irregular circle shape. One of the project’s biggest challenges was executing the design. After an extensive search, Lesley Stowe found a supplier that could convert two laminated substrates into the windowed pouches. The converter first prints a web of natural-looking, uncoated paper. The printed paper is then laminated to a roll of clear film. Finally, the custom window is created by laser-cutting the shape from the printed paper layer, leaving only the clear film. The snack range recently expanded into the U.S. from its strictly Canadian distribution. To help retailers introduce the cookies to the new market, Subplot also created eight-pack display boxes with a similar design that keep the pouches neatly stacked on shelf and increase the overall billboard area. 14
january/february 2012
Polished Pair L’Oreal bottles couple good looks and performance.
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’Oreal (Clichy Cedex, France) has relaunched its Pureology 100% vegan hair care products in stylish new packaging, created by Robert Bergman, founder of Mpakt (New York, NY) and former L’Oreal creative director. Made from a single mold, the pair of silvery, pearlescent-toned bottles appear to embrace on shelf. The bottles’ modern, curvaceous lines are also a strong departure from the brand’s original packaging structures, which were inspired by classic olive oil bottles. In addition to being sensuous and sophisticated, the bottle shapes create a flash-foam from the viscous liquid hair care products. The previous thin-necked bottles didn’t foam products. Paired with a flip-top cap, the wide-necked bottles enable easy one-handed use in the shower. The new packaging is also sustainable, made from FDA-approved, food-grade high-density polyethylene containing post-consumer recycled material. Both the shape and sparse decoration of the bottles impart the high-end feel needed to reach Pureology’s target market of professional colorists and their clients. Instead of crowded decoration and messaging, the svelte bottles sport a simple logo with restrained type.
Spirited Redesign Cockburn’s rebrand recalls the port’s historic packaging.
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hen Symington Family Estates (Portugal) refreshed the packaging for its Cockburn’s Special Reserve, it took a much different tack than the port’s previous owner, Beam Global. “The previous bottle was decidedly too modern,� says Henri Sizaret, vice president of marketing at Symington, which has produced ports since 1882. “We took the bottle that was famous in the 1970s and ’80s and we basically told our design agency, ‘Let’s make this more up-to-date.’ So our goal was to reassure about the port quality and, at the same time, to echo that design from the ’70s.� Under Beam Global, the brand used a sleek, modern bottle with a straight shape and strong shoulder angles. The new bottle, designed by Bloom design agency (London), has rounded shoulders with a slightly rounded top, and the closure uses an aluminium capsule instead of the previous plastic one. The bottle production was done by B.A. (formerly Barbosa e Almeida [Avintes, Portugal]). The label uses offset printing, with color foils. The elements that were picked up from the vintage Cockburn’s bottle include an embossed logo (showing a crown, a rooster, and the year 1815), as well as gold embossing on the words “Special Reserve� and other portions of the label. The new bottle is more slender than the vintage one, which had a slightly squat look. Sizaret says Cockburn’s was a pioneer in port package design in the 1970s, when it used packaging to establish itself in the U.K., seeing a market between cheaper ports served in pubs and the expensive vintage wines. “There were no strong packaging ideas for a port brand in the U.K.,� he says. “Cockburn’s introduced golden elements in the print, and they introduced embossing on the bottle. We brought back those old icons.� — Jeff Fleischer PD
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DESIGNER’S CORNER
BY ROBERT BERGMAN
Powerfully Modern
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A new visual vocabulary fortifies package designs with commanding abilities.
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elcome to 2012—a new year with fresh kinetic energy, optimism, and potential. What can we expect? One thing I’m certain of is that we’ll all have less time, patience, and energy to figure out what a packaged product does. Now more than ever, package designers need to speak the complex language of our modern times. We need to make a package “yell beautifully.” Here are three examples that excel.
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A bright color-coded label identifies the Holli Mølle flour variety.
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A simple logo treatment adds a touch of beautiful sophistication.
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Strømme Throndsen Design uses a bold, black background to command attention on shelf.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
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Bold sans serif, justified type on the front of the pack is balanced by generously leaded sans serif type on the package’s back panel.
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The basic black-and-white color scheme with a touch of color is elegant and sophisticated while still being utilitarian.
S U STA I N A B I L I T Y W E B I N A R : Available Online
Designing for a GREENER FUTURE Listen to an archived version of Package Design’s sustainability webinar, featuring speakers from Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever, on packagedesignmag.com/webinars Get up-to-date insights into how large packaged goods companies are approaching package design and sustainability. Discussion points in this 60-minute webinar include: > new sustainable packaging materials > package-design initiatives > processes and advancements > regulatory issues Plus, each speaker discusses their company’s green initiatives and how that translates to their bottom lines. In just one hour, you’ll uncover dynamic, new strategies that protect people, the planet, and your profits.
Hear the session on packagedesignmag.com/webinars
S P O N S O R E D BY:
FEATURED SPEAKERS INCLUDE:
PJ MASON Principal Design Manager for Oral Care Innovation PROCTER & GAMBLE
SCOTT A. VITTERS GM of PlantBottle Packaging Platform THE COCA-COLA COMPANY
MIKE HUGHES Senior Manager of Packaging UNILEVER
DESIGNER’S CORNER
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My company, Bergman Associates/Mpakt, relied on robust construction and simple lines to dominate ExtraVirgin Olive Oil’s can.
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The naked skin imagery is meant to be an edgy play on the brand’s name ExtraVirgin and suggests that the product is minimally processed and organic.
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The beefy typeface Franklin Gothic defines the product’s front panel, all in uppercase.
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Ruiz+Company uses bold floods of color for the Chocolat Factory paper wrappers.
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Supersized type in a big, bad font (Dim Bold) quickly conveys the chocolate bar variety to consumers.
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A simple rectangular logo conveys the taste attributes of Chocolat Factory’s treats.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
I call this power-modernism, and it steers clear of anything extra, dated, busy, or confusing. Powermodernism focuses, excites, and invigorates a brand’s message. It has strong modern typography with an acute design sensibility for aesthetics, balance, harmony, and open space. Combined with imagery that’s never cluttered, complicated, or busy, this type becomes a loud, resonating message that consumers understand immediately. Power-modernism has the inherent ability to cut through the clutter of crowded shopping aisles, enabling packaged goods to make consumers stop, look, read, and buy. PD
Robert Bergman is founder and creative director of Mpakt (www.m-pakt.com), a luxury product packaging design company in New York, and Bergman Associates (www.bergassociates.com), a design, branding, and advertising company. Bergman is former vice president/creative director of L’Oreal and the recipient of several American Package Design Awards, The Prix d’Excellence de la Beauté, The HBA International Package Design Award, The Type Director’s Club Award, and The Tokyo Art Director’s Club Award.
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SUSTAINABLY SPEAKING
by Wendy Jedlicka, CPP
Good Enough to Eat Edible packaging offers food for thought.
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n our rush to modernize, not all “good-old ideas” are getting chucked by the wayside. Around the world, people enjoy foods in smart packaging that’s been handed down through generations. These quick, portable meals include tamales, lotus packets, and steamed foods wrapped in banana leaves. When the leaf (or husk) wrapper is discarded, it readily breaks down. Clever package designs have been explored by a range of cultures for years. The books How to Wrap Five Eggs and How to Wrap Five More Eggs look at Japanese design in traditional packaging. They’re fabulous starting points for any exploration of truly natural packaging solutions often made from castoffs and agricultural waste. This edible wrapper for Coolhaus ice cream sandwiches offers a good jumping-off point for designers looking to make a real difference in packaging.
What if we take the idea of natural packaging and extend it? What if we look at more than packaging made from food production leftovers, including stalks, husks, and leaves? What if we could eat the wrapper, too? Botan Rice Candy has been doing this for decades. The soft confection, which is imported from Japan by JFC International (San Francisco), has an inner wrapper of edible rice paper that 20
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offers a convenient way to keep the sticky stuff off your fingers. Confectioners in Asia aren’t the only candy makers using this principle. U.S. gourmet ice cream sandwich company Coolhaus prides itself on its creative approach to its food and business, and it’s been using edible packaging for its ice cream sandwiches since its founding three years ago. “It was an integral part of creating a market niche and being sustainable,” co-founder and CEO Natasha Case says. Coolhaus uses potato starch to make the wrappers and vegetable ink to print its logo on them. The starch-based paper not only satisfies Coolhaus’ desire for sustainable packaging, it also overcomes a convenience challenge for the product’s distribution. Coolhaus got its start with one ice cream truck in Los Angeles, and the company’s grown its fleet to four trucks in Los Angeles, one cart in New York City, two trucks in Austin, TX, and two trucks in Miami, FL. The mobile fleet helps more ice cream fans enjoy their sandwiches, but it doesn’t exactly provide convenient places for treat consumption and disposal of traditional sandwich wrappers. Coolhaus’ edible packaging makes this disposal problem disappear with just a few bites—proving that functional packaging can be sustainable, too. As we navigate the ever-increasing intricacies of packaging products in a more sustainable way, designers can gauge ideas with one of the simplest metrics: If we eat it (or if something else eats it), the package won’t be an environmental nightmare to clean up later. PD For articles on similar topics, visit the Sustainability channel on PackageDesignMag.com.
Wendy Jedlicka, CPP, is principal of Jedlicka Design Ltd. (www.jedlicka.com), a founding faculty member of Minneapolis College of Art and Design’s Sustainable Design Program (www.mcad.edu/sustainable), and contributing editor of the book Packaging Sustainability (PackagingSustainability.info).
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january/february 2012
By Linda Casey
Rewards Night-sky-inspired packaging rockets MoonPie sales to new frontiers.
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uring Tory Johnston’s 12-year tenure at Chattanooga Bakery (Tennessee), which makes MoonPie marshmallow cookie sandwiches, he’s seen the brand enjoy terrific sales growth— even during the recession. “We kind of perk up in a down economy,” he says. “MoonPie is a comfort food and a trusted brand that people grew up with. It’s a relatively inexpensive way to relive those fond memories.” Even so, Johnston, vice president of marketing, saw an opportunity for growth. And it was all about the packaging. Johnston brought on board The Goldstein Group and charged the agency with this goal: Create a fabulously fresh look for Chattanooga Bakery’s No. 1 selling product—MoonPie Minis—that plays up the brand’s heritage in an authentic way. MoonPie has plenty of heritage to play up. The sandwich was invented in 1917, when Earl Mitchell, Sr., saw a need for a substantial between-meal snack for local coal miners on the job. Mitchell was inspired by his bakery employees, who made their own snacks by dipping graham cookies into marshmallow. The company added another graham cookie and a generous chocolate coating to the recipe, and the MoonPie was born. Over the years it became a strong symbol of the Southern working-
man—country singer Bill Lister sang its praises in his song “RC Cola and Moon Pie” in 1951. For much of the brand’s nearly 100-year history, middle-class Americans have been buying MoonPies in white packages with a blue-and-yellow logo. But the problem with MoonPie’s specific color combination was that it wasn’t unique or even unusual. When The Goldstein Group did a competitive analysis of the current marketplace, it found blue and white playing prominent roles in snack packaging for Entenmann’s, Little Debbie, Hostess, Mallomar, Tastykake, and Famous Amos.
A heavenly new look To differentiate MoonPie Minis on shelf, its packaging was redesigned with a darker shade of blue than its competitors. Light-blue swirls represent the fluffy texture of marshmallow while adding depth to the graphic; small white stars complete the night-sky feel. “We love how the new packaging celebrates the night sky, overtly plays up the ‘moon’ part of MoonPie, and also transforms the white— which holds big brand equity for us—into a fluffy cloud,” says Johnston. The changes to the logo embody the cosmic emphasis as well (see sidebar, page 26). And the PACKAGEDESIGNMAG.COM
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u
A Cosmic Upgrade
v w x
1 The new brand mark plays up the brand’s heritage while keeping a sense of whimsy. The descriptor “since 1917” was given a fun, wavy type treatment, and a “ting” was added to the “M” in the upper left corner of the brand mark. 2 Each size has a distinctive callout in high- contrast red type. The Original’s callout (shown here) has a nostalgic feel with elegant script and a playful star. The Minis’ lettering is tracked tightly, reinforcing the idea of small and compact, while the brawny shape of DoubleDecker’s bulging type and red outline conveys the idea of two layers of gooey goodness in each snack. 3 The rich, new color palette distinguishes itself from MoonPie’s competitors. It also reinforces the MoonPie brand with its night-sky imagery. 4 Digital renderings of MoonPie sandwiches better convey the taste and textures of the snack’s rich coating, delicate graham cookies, and creamy marshmallow filling.
BEFORE
u v w
1 The previous brand mark had the word MoonPie on one line. 2 A large, primarily white block is the dominant color treatment for this package. 3 The sandwich photo faithfully depicts the product inside the package but is less effective at conveying the snack’s taste attributes. 4 Despite its large type, the size designation gets lost in a sea of white.
x product imagery represents a strong departure from how Chattanooga Bakery used to display its MoonPie sandwiches on pack. “The new beauty shot is probably the thing we had to be sold on most,” says Johnston. “We’ve always focused on making the product photo very literal, very true.” But The Goldstein Group insisted that merely showing the consumer what’s inside the package wasn’t enough. The image has to convey the textures of the pie’s rich coating, crumbly graham cookies, and light marshmallow filling. 24
january/february 2012
So the agency suggested using high-end digital illustration versus photography for the product shot. “Digital rendering captures the highlights and the appetite appeal better than photography could ever do,” says Terri Goldstein, founder and principal. The resulting illustration, says Johnston, “has unbelievable taste appeal.” There’s also a practical benefit. “From a printing standpoint, a digital rendering wins because it prints clearly and consistently,” he adds.
2012
a new dimension
design & culture / brand identity & packaging
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FUSE 2D: CREATIVE & GRAPHIC DESIGN FUSE 3D: INDUSTRIAL & STRUCTURAL DESIGN (NEW)
STEVE FRYKHOLM VP & Creative Director, Herman Miller
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La Bella Luna The brand mark redesign was carefully considered to play up the night-sky theme while retaining brand recognition. Several iterations were developed, each with a different focus on nostalgia, whimsy, and indulgence. Ultimately, the logo that prevailed (top) includes a brand name that’s now on two lines versus its previous treatment as one continuous word. “Stacking the words ‘Moon’ and ‘Pie’ draws more attention to the word ‘Moon’ and makes that part of our name unforgettable,” says Tory Johnston, vice president of marketing. Dotting the “i” with a star, he adds, plays up the nostalgia and reinforces the night-sky theme, while the prominent descriptor “since 1917” spotlights the brand heritage. Wrapped around the top of the brand mark is a red banner with the MoonPie’s longtime tagline, “The Original Marshmallow Sandwich,” in white type.
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The new design is printed by Southern Champion Tray, LP, on recycled 0.020-pt. clay-coated backboard for the cartons and trays, and by The Robinette Company on 80-gauge metalized polypropylene film for the twin-pack wrappers. Both package converters are U.S.-based companies. “We use 100% American packaging vendors,” Johnston says. “As an iconic American brand, that’s not negotiable. And why look anywhere else?” Johnston has been pleased with his vendors’ costs, quality, and service. The original design was set up to print in both process and spot colors. Johnston hired a freelancer to convert the design into a pure CMYK job, which would negate recurring spot-color printing costs for MoonPie Minis cartons or trays. The twin-pack wrappers are reverse-printed with nine colors, including a PMS 2728 blue, on a servodriven press. A clear polypropylene layer is printed and then laminated to a metalized layer. The results are twin-pack wrappers so vibrantly colored that they virtually command a shopper’s attention. The finished multi-layer film also provides excellent barrier properties, which increase shelf life. Not that it’s needed. “In our chain-wide distribution at Cracker Barrel, sales of the Minis in the new packaging have really picked up,” Johnston says. “It looks like we’re heading for a double-digit lift.” Ecstatic with the results, Chattanooga Bakery plans to use the new design to help refresh packaging for the entire MoonPie product line. The Goldstein Group has already adapted the design for the other two MoonPie sizes, and the new packaging will start hitting store shelves in the second quarter of 2012. PD For articles on similar topics, visit the Food channel on PackageDesignMag.com.
For more information, visit The Goldstein Group, www.thegoldsteingroup.net Southern Champion Tray, LP, www.sctray.com The Robinette Company, www.therobinetteco.com
•• PackageDesignJan2012.pdf
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By Patrick Henry
THE HOUSE
WINS Retailers are investing in private-label packaging to elevate brand presence and build profits.
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hanks to their increasing allure for shoppers, private-label brands—a.k.a. “house, “store,” and “own” brands—have become big business for retailers. The Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA [New York, NY]) says that over the past decade, annual sales of private-label products have risen by 40% in supermarkets and by 96% in drug chains, reaching more than $100 billion in 2010. Private-label brands are the stars of the show— and prime moneymakers on the shelves—at Sunflower Farmers Market (Boulder, CO, Phoenix, AZ), a network of full-service grocery stores in the Southwest. “Whenever we introduce a privatelabel item, it skyrockets straight to the top of its category,” says Daniel Sinclair, director of private label for the 36-store chain, where the inventory includes a mix of house and national brands. Sinclair says that about 30% of his private-label stock consists of premium organic foods such as jams from Denmark, truffles from France, and other delicacies that consumers can sample in the 28
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stores. Once they do, Sinclair says, they realize the only difference between the house products and their nationally branded equivalents is that the national brands “just have a lot of marketing money behind them”—but no edge in quality. Once upon a time, says Perry Seelert, strategic partner at the retail design consultancy United* dsn (New York and San Francisco), private-label was the “ugly stepchild of branding.” Today, it’s soaring gracefully past its second-tier reputation, giving stores new ways to cement customer loyalty with distinctively packaged products that shoppers can find nowhere else.
More than margin Glen Pfeifer, vice president at the private-label branding agency Daymon Worldwide (Stamford, CT), acknowledges that some retailers still look to store brands primarily for the help they can give to the bottom line. Unlike “name” national brands, private-label products don’t have advertising and
promotional expenditures built into their cost structures. Thus, they can be sold at lower prices to consumers with better profit margins for the seller. But retailers that have learned to see them “as not just a margin play” can turn a private-label component into “a true point of difference” and competitive advantage, Pfeifer says. A large measure of the credit for the new cachet of private-label brands belongs to Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and other pioneering retailers that specialize in developing premium products and everyday items under their own names, says PLMA president Brian Sharoff. Maria Brous, director of media and community relations for Publix Super Markets (Lakeland, FL), says that her chain sells private-label products in nearly every category, and that shoppers who can be persuaded to try them usually become strong brand advocates. These sellers “are really starting to treat these products as brands, moving private label to the forefront,” says Todd Maute, partner at CBX (New
York, NY), a strategic branding firm. And it’s working: A 2011 study for PLMA found that eight out of 10 consumers now rate private label as either “equal to” or “better than” national brands.
Upside of “economic woes” The recession is helping fuel the surge of interest in private-label brands. A downturn, says Sharoff, usually produces a fresh crop of price-sensitive shoppers who may be looking at private-label products for the first time in their lives. But to keep shoppers loyal to the store brands they’ve tried, the attraction has to be based on more than just penny-pinching. This means that generic packaging won’t do. Private-label brands that want to compare favorably with national CPG leaders must speak with “a voice that transcends the shelf, and they have to have a personality that transcends mere price,” declares Seelert. That insight has become the core concept for the development and launch of the most effective
Until recently, Sunflower Farmers Market’s approach to private-label branding was presenting quality products in simply designed packaging. Last year, the chain implemented an across-the-board redesign that has brought a more dynamic flair to the packaging of more than 600 products.
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Over the past decade, annual sales of privatelabel products have risen by 40% in supermarkets and by 96% in drug chains, reaching more than $100 billion in 2010.
private-label brands. Instead of thinking about their opportunities in simplistic good-better-best terms, says Maute, retailers now are “creating products around lifestyle segments and consumers’ wants and needs.” One of his clients, the New York City pharmacy chain Duane Reade, asked for help in creating a store-brand portfolio geared toward New Yorkers. The new portfolio includes the “Apt. 5” line of household cleaning products, with package graphics that evoke urban living spaces. There’s also a no-name collection of paper towels, bathroom tissue, and other items, readily identifiable by their images of New York City landmarks rendered as UPC codes. Duane Reade, appreciating the environmental awareness of many New Yorkers, has catered to this lifestyle trait with “Apt. 5 Goes Green,” highlighting the naturally derived and biodegradable ingredients of some of the products.
Come home to “Via Roma” United* dsn aimed to evoke a strong sense of place when it developed the Via Roma (New York, NY) line of Italian foods and pasta sauces for A&P. Seelert says that the bottles and cartons, with their cinematic-looking images of folks from Tuscany in the old country, possess a “tremendous personality” that builds brand loyalty. Via Roma fans, Seelert says, “don’t think of it as a private label.”
The Publix Brand Challenge makes it easy for consumers to compare the chain’s store-branded products to those from national brands. The promotions, which run several times a year, offers consumers free Publix’s privatelabel equivalents when they purchase select national branded products.
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Publix Super Markets refined the design of its private-label products with clean layouts and fetching photos. The solid-color backgrounds bring less noise into its drink-mix packaging and don’t mimic the gradients used in name-brand competitors, such as Crystal Light.
About seven years ago, says Brous, Publix Super Markets decided that it would stop trying to blend in with the look of national brands when designing packages for its private-label products (a number of which, such as its premium ice creams, it also manufactures). Now the visual keynotes are more white space and “less noise” in a clean layout with eye-catching graphic details.
Branding with barcodes With the creative assistance of Vertis Communications, Sunflower Farmers Market (Baltimore, MD) has enhanced the simple look of its store-branded packages with bold colors, a bigger logo, and, on about 40% of the items, QR codes that connect shoppers to educational content about the products. The landing pages, says Sinclair, might offer nutritional advice and recipes. Some tell stories about the chain’s commitment to bringing its customers what its tagline calls “Serious Food” at “Silly Prices.” For example, by snapping 2-D barcodes on jars of organic jam, shoppers learn that the products use only fair-trade sugar from sources certified for their equitable treatment of growers and harvesters. It all goes to show, says Seelert, that privatelabel brand positioning should be “no different
than you would put into any other brand. You can’t put a substandard investment into something and think that consumers are going to get uniquely attached to it.” Today’s consumers, agrees Pfeifer, are brandsavvy across the board—maybe more so, in some ways, than retailers who insist on seeing privatelabel products and the national leaders as distant relatives. They’re closer than that, and they shouldn’t be treated as dissimilar opportunities, certainly not when it comes to the amount of creative inspiration put into the packaging. Private-label or national, says Pfeifer, when you get right down to it, “it’s just branding.” PD
For more information, visit CBX, www.cbx.com Daymon Worldwide, www.daymon.com Private Label Manufacturers Association, www.plma.com united* dsn, www.uniteddsn.com Vertis Communications, www.vertisinc.com
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Carton Creativity Outstanding attention to detail knocks it out of the box for these National Paperboard Packaging Competition winners. By Linda Casey
C
hosen from 173 entries from 31 members of the Paperboard Packaging Council (PPC), the top packages from the 68th annual National Paperboard Packaging Competition (covering 2010 and 2011) sport intricate designs. Better yet, their complex structures are carefully constructed not to interfere with the packaging’s functionality. This mindful approach to creativity helped the entries triumph in a contest where the criteria were tough, both technically and artistically. Entries in the General categories were first evaluated for material choice, development objectives, overall design, and printing and converting processes. The judges measured how the package design affected manufacturing and distribution, including packing line efficiency and performance in storage, warehousing, and distribution. The cartons’ cost-reduction features were also considered, including the ability to substitute materials in design. Finally, the packages’ brand enhancement, marketing, and shelf impact were examined.
Innovation category entries were appraised on the structural design and other technical aspects of the converting processes. The judges took into account how well the package used unusual or innovative materials, such as substrates, inks, laminations, and coatings. Eco category entries were evaluated on a carton’s use of paperboard—or how paperboard replaced a less sustainable substrate—to create an eco-friendly package. Judges considered any material or energy savings, the environmental effects of the converting processes, and overall environmental stewardship. “The winning entries this year are exceptional examples of what kind of ingenious packaging structures can be created with paperboard, which is unique in that it is a sustainable, recyclable, and renewable substrate,” says Kim Guarnaccia, director of marketing and communications for PPC and the coordinator of the competition. Here are the top five award winners.
Rigid Box of the Year, General Category: Excellence Award
Towel box For: Sobel Westex By: Taylor Box Company The carton beautifully presents its product using a technically complex design. Each box requires multiple die-cutting and laminating steps before being painstakingly hand-assembled.
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Folding Carton of the Year and the Innovation Award
Mars Chocolate’s Valentine Heart family of packages For: Mars Chocolate By: Graphic Packaging International This family of cartons for chocolates comprises heart-shaped boxes with innovative finishing features. Each box is glued to hold a bag of M&M’s; a tab on the box’s back panel locks the bag into place. The final finishing feature is a die-cut relief area that prevents even the smallest box from tearing when loading an M&M’s bag.
National Paperboard Package of the Year, Innovation Category: Gold Award
Cheerios Bring on the Gold 2010 Olympics Hockey Shoot Out cereal box For: General Mills By: Graphic Packaging International The limited-edition cereal box features a 3-D interactive hockey game on its back panel. This intricate game has many complex pieces, which could have been a nightmare on General Mills’ packing line. But the carton is designed to run quickly and easily through the high-speed line, thus keeping costs to a minimum and getting the product to market quickly.
Eco Award
Crest Complete holographic toothpaste box For: Procter & Gamble By: PaperWorks Packaging Group Holographic effects on cartons are usually achieved by laminating non-biodegradable PET to boxboard, which makes the package difficult to recycle. The Crest Complete holographic toothpaste box uses a different method, with a micro-embossed reflective coating. This process costs less to produce and removes the need for an additional lamination step at an off-site facility. The transportation, energy, and raw material savings reduce packaging costs and the carton’s environmental impact. PD
Judges’ Award (Cross-category)
Origins Plantscription Anti-Aging cosmetics display For: Estée Lauder By: Disc The Judges’ Award is new to the competition. It honors an exceptional example of paperboard packaging that is neither a folding carton nor a rigid box. The first Judges’ Award winner is a point-ofpurchase display made from paperboard versus the more traditional foam core and wood. The display is created by laminating 28 layers of 24-pt. SBS board together. A guillotine cutter is then used to trim the glued boards. The result is a point-of-purchase display that can be easily recycled after use.
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Toast the A California wine brand’s pouch offers a fresh take on the caregory.
DAY By Linda Casey
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The pouch’s multi-layer structure helps prevent the package from ruin in an ice cooler, and the pouch also lets consumers chill the wine nearly three times faster than glass bottles do.
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ith record high wine shipments, the U.S. surpassed France as the world’s largest wine-consuming nation two years ago. Wine industry consultant Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates (Woodside,CA) says Americans drank approximately 330 million cases of the red, white, and blush in 2010. Most of this wine was made here in the U.S, some of the vino traveled from foreign soils, and virtually all of it was sold in bottles. In an industry steeped in traditions, Ryan Donnelly, co-founder of Home Team Wines (Sonoma, CA) aims to expand the ways Americans enjoy wine. Along with Home Team Wines’ other founder, Lane Shackleton, and X Winery’s (Napa, CA) founder and head winemaker Reed Renaudin, Donnelly launched the Bluebird Wine Pouch. The collaboration’s first offering in the standup pouch is a Pinot Noir that the company describes as a full-bodied, spicy, Burgundy-style red. Placing a better quality wine in the standup pouch was important to Donnelly, because he wants to revolutionize where and how good wine is drunk—not replicate the lower-end experiences offered by some bag-in-box wines. He was looking specifically to make something worthy of drinking on a “bluebird day”: an idiom originally used by ski enthusiasts to describe a
With sales of 199.6 million cases, California wine accounted for a 61% volume share of the record-breaking volume of cases sold in 2010.
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Variations on a theme
Hand-drawn type is integrated tightly with the tree truck graphic in this drawing.
sunny day after a fresh snowfall. Bluebird’s target market—Millennials with active lifestyles—has grown the phrase’s meaning to describe any day filled with simple pleasures. To help reach this market, Donnelly and Shackleton approached CF Napa Brand Design (Napa, CA), an agency with more than 35 years in the wine industry. The agency’s owner and creative director, David Shuemann, was attracted by the opportunity to create a design using a newer packaging format for this specific wine-drinking market. “Millennials have a much different view of wine than other demographics,” he says. “They’re definitely interested in new wines in different formats. They’re much more willing to be experimental.”
Natural look for a high-tech package
This concept explores the idea of an evening, outdoor setting.
The feel and style of the final type are evident in this sketch. The Bluebird name, though, has less prominence here, and there’s less size variation between the three messages.
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Shuemann was also excited about the alternative packaging’s design possibilities. The particular pouch used by Bluebird is an AstraPouch (Penfield, NY). It’s glossy, it’s big (holding two bottles’ worth of wine), and it has a large, flat front panel. The stand-up pouch offers a much bigger billboard area than a traditional paper wine label. A designer can decorate the entire front of the package, and the AstraPouch’s double-gusseted design makes sure the art isn’t distorted by bulges and creases in the front panel. Multilayer film pouches, such as the AstraPouch, brilliantly display designs by overlaying a transparent film over the printed film. This gives the pouches a bright, glossy appearance. And the pouch printing-and-converting process doesn’t require the gripper edges associated with many other package deco-and-manufacturing processes. So designers can have their artwork bleed off edges. With such a refined canvas, the agency could have easily created a sleek, cosmopolitan look for the wine brand. But that wouldn’t have conveyed the natural beauty of the outdoors that Bluebird aims to celebrate. Instead, the design process started with pencil and paper. All of the preliminary artwork, from type to illustration, was done by hand at CF Napa, which produced a linocut of the design. The primitive, woodcut-printing technique gave the design a roughhewn appearance to suggest a more natural feel. Throughout the handcrafted exploration and printing process, all the design work was done in simple black and white. Color wasn’t added until
the linocuts were digitized for artwork assembly and cleanup. This enabled the design team to focus on type and layout first and really think through the color choices later. Instead of using colors traditionally associated with wine packaging, the CF Napa team wanted something as unusual as the packaging structure itself. “We were seeing early trends with light blues in other markets,” says Shuemann. “At the time, we hadn’t seen this color in wine packaging. It was so different and just really arresting.” Naturally, the color range was also a good fit for reinforcing the brand name. “One of the hardest things for wine consumers to do is to remember the brand they drank just last night,” says Shuemann. “So we did everything we could to help them remember the name Bluebird.” Choosing light blues as the primary colors also enabled CF Napa to play with complementary colors, such as the reverse white and bright orange, in the design. The resulting look, says Donnelly, is crisp and clean, and it really stands out on retail shelves.
Instead of using colors traditionally associated with wine packaging, the CF Napa team wanted colors that would be as unusual as the packaging structure itself. Built to woo The packaging has also helped Bluebird get wider distribution. When Home Team Wines was courting liquor distributors last year, the company found that many distributors had no interest. It was just another small wine company trying to break into the business. But with the introduction of the wine pouch, the vintner found that some of those same distributors were now eager to talk. “Distributors are actually calling us,” says Donnelly. “They [almost] never call someone small like us, but they wanted the pouch.” Unlike traditional wine bottles that need to sit on a shelf, pouches have more merchandising
options. Because the pouch is completely covered with a clear laminated film, it can be displayed on ice without damaging the decoration. Its die-cut handle can double as hanging holes if a retailer wants to hang the pouch from a peg. The pouch’s dimensions even offer a merchandising opportunity. “This can slot right in a six-pack’s place in a convenience store’s cooler case,” says Shuemann. Beyond these merchandising opportunities, distributors receive an immediate financial benefit from the packaging format: The lightweight pouches cost less to ship. (Packaging represents only 2% of a filled AstraPouch’s weight.) Better still, the packages carry a small carbon footprint. Unfilled Astrapouches reduce gas emissions by 85% compared with unfilled standard glass bottles on a per-liter basis. Home Team Wines adds that even after accounting for current recycling rates for glass, the Astrapouch reduces landfill volumes by at least 70% compared with glass bottles. Because the pouches are so much less prone to breakage than glass bottles, they also require less tertiary packaging. “We’re not using as much cardboard and then trucking it across the country,” Donnelly says. And each truckload carries more wine because the pouch’s shape and durability allows them to be packed more tightly on each pallet.
Tapped for convenience The Bluebird Wine Pouch can keep wine fresh for up to a month after opening, thanks to a one-way spout that causes the pouch to collapse upon itself as it pours. It’s a convenience that fits right into Bluebird’s target demographic’s active lifestyles. “It’s perfect for a weekend camping trip,” says Shuemann. Adds Donnelly, “It’s easy to store in a cooler, and it can be brought to more places.” Encouraged by the pouch’s warm welcome, Donnelly is setting his 2012 sales goals high. “We were a small wine brand with annual sales of 3,500 cases,” he says. “This year, I think we’ll sell 10,000 cases.” PD
For more information, visit AstraPouch, www.astrapouch-na.com CF Napa Brand Design, www.cfnapa.com Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates, www.gfawine.com
PACKAGEDESIGNMAG.COM
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THE
NEED FOR
SPEED Data-driven systems allow package designers to pick up the pace and stay on top of details.
By Linda Casey
T
o re-invigorate their brands, consumer packaged goods companies are tapping into consumer thirst for choice. The result is a surge of niche and seasonal products that’s pushing the number of packaged goods higher. Last year marked nearly a decade of double-digit, year-on-year SKU growth, according to printing industry and consulting firm Karstedt Partners, LLC (New York, NY). While brands may have more SKUs, they’re not necessarily selling as many products in each SKU. Lower-volume SKUs require smaller package printing jobs, challenging designers to amortize the cost of new creative for these products over a shorter print run.
Carol’s Daughter moved to digital printing for consistent reproduction of its new package design. A surprise benefit for the boutique beauty brand was the much lower costs of digital production proofs compared to those done with a traditional offset press. Further exploration of digital technology revealed that the brand could save upwards of 25% overall by switching to digital printing.
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Lucky for them, digital technologies that support design have also grown. Here are five ways package designers and consumer packaged goods companies are benefiting from digital technologies.
1. Calling off the hunt A common way for packaged food companies to expand their product offerings is to add more varieties under proven product lines. This process clearly offers built-in product manufacturing efficiencies, but it can also be a challenge for designers to extend the product line’s visual consistency —especially when the other packages (and their product photography) were completed months or even years ago. According to Chris Powell, senior manager of imagery for strategic branding firm Daymon Design (Stamford, CT), the fly in the ointment might be something as modest as a simple white bowl. He explains that product photography props (such as a bowl) can be difficult to identify and match with those used in previous photo shoots for the same product line. “We’ve got 50 white bowls,” says Powell. “And believe me, they’re all slightly different.” But making sure that the same white bowl is used for all flavors is a lot easier since Daymon installed the OpenText (Ontario, Canada) digital asset management (DAM) system. It enables package designers to store metadata with photos. And this metadata can include information on where the bowl is located and how to identify it. This helps Daymon designers not only find a prop quicker, but also be certain they’re using the correct one.
2. Speeding projects to accuracy Accuracy is of the utmost importance to Bausch & Lomb (Rochester, NY), which has a plethora of
products for the pharmaceutical and medical markets. The nature of these target markets requires that products and their packaging quickly move from development to distribution. The company’s global packaging team was completing complex package development projects in less than five months, but the ambitious team thought it could do better. Starting with one vertical market, pharmaceuticals, the group evaluated how it was spending those precious few months. The team found a significant time sink: administrative tasks. The group was spending more than half of its time managing those project details, including the complex review and commenting process.
Artists at Daymon Designs use its digital asset management system to track product photography props used in package designs. The technology enables the agency to quickly identify the right item, saving time spent searching for a prop while helping eliminate visual inconsistencies across product lines.
A DAM system can help clients develop consensus before the agency even gets involved. The group identified the primary problem to be its email- and fax-based reviewing and commenting procedures. For each project, a lead package design team member collected, managed, and interpreted comments from stakeholders from different departments and sometimes different countries. PACKAGEDESIGNMAG.COM
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“ Going digital, we can standardize colors across print providers, across the country.” — Jaye Johnson, principal at design agency Artico
And sometimes those comments were repetitious or—worse yet—conflicting. Such comments often put the package-design team member in the uncomfortable position of mediator between the stakeholders. The package design team decided to completely revamp its review process by adopting Kodak’s (Rochester, NY) Design2Launch system, which takes an automated approach to routing and alerts. The DAM provides a single place to comment, review, and approve content. It also controls corporate processes with automated workflows, making sure that errors don’t slip in during editing and revision. Since bringing in the technology, Bausch & Lomb has seen its package design projects’ turnaround time go from months to weeks, and it has eliminated labeling errors. “Since we implemented Design2Launch about four years ago, we’ve had zero product recalls because of mislabeled products,” says Edward Vaquero, Bausch & Lomb engineering director for packaging and plastic.
3. Clearing communication lines Collaboration is just as important for designers at agencies as it is for those at worldwide brands. Kaleidoscope, an integrated design agency and prototype provider (Chicago, IL), consults with packagedgoods companies on everything from conceptualization and proofing to package printing. There’s one common requirement from nearly
For more information, visit Artico, www.artico-usa.com Daymon Design, www.daymondesign.com Hewlett-Packard, www.hp.com Kaleidoscope, www.thinkkaleidoscope.com Karstedt Partners, LLC, www.karstedt.com Kodak, www.graphics.kodak.com Logotech, Inc., www.logotech-inc.com OpenText Corp., www.opentext.com
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all of Kaleidoscope’s customers, says marketing and sales manager Dan Dowling. “The requests for proposal have a heavy emphasis on workflow systems,” he says. “It’s not just about the creative.” Clients aren’t content to work within an agency’s system, either. If a CPG is paying money to a vendor for a service, it wants that supplier to work within the CPG’s system. So Kaleidoscope designers are continually investing non-billable time to learn new DAM systems. This is a challenge, says Guy Gangi, director of brand strategy, planning, and design, but it’s not a bother. The benefits of working within a DAM are worth the time and effort in studying the systems. For an agency designer, working from the position of an outsider, serving as a mediator for two disagreeing project stakeholders can be challenging. Sometimes the only way to resolve this situation, says Gangi, is to develop two different designs. This isn’t exactly the best use of the agency’s or brand owner’s time. But a DAM system can help clients develop consensus without the designer mediating the conversation, he explains. This makes for a much more amicable agency-client relationship. DAM also can be used to better manage relationships and communications between an agency and the client’s other vendors. For one customer, Kaleidoscope collaborates with stakeholders within the client company—a retailer that primarily carries private-label products—and the client’s many comanufacturers. If communications aren’t managed well between Kaleidoscope and the co-manufacturers, this could damage the relationship between Kaleidoscope and its customer. Kaleidoscope uses DAM to make sure that all of the client’s co-manufacturers and their packaging suppliers and printers are working within the same visual guidelines.
4. Gearing up for consistent execution Jaye Johnson, principal at design agency Artico, (Waldport, OR) encourages clients—especially those selling perishable goods—to take the use of digital technology all the way to package printing for uniform results. “A client can have a brand
To ensure that the brand colors have same amount of vibrancy throughout the product line, Artico designs the Columbus deli packages for printing on one specific make of digital press.
color that spans across products,” Johnson says, “and those products can be produced by different co-manufacturers. For example, one could be a chicken product and the other is a pork product. If the purple isn’t exactly the same in both packages and the packages are shelved next to each other in the meat case, one product can look faded compared with the other. The package with the faded purple is going to look old to consumers. In a perishable world, nobody wants to buy old.” Instead, Johnson likes to design packages for printing on HP Indigo presses. “Going digital, we can standardize colors across print providers, across the country,” she says. “I find it’s easy to communicate exact color to an Indigo as opposed to a traditional press. “I don’t have to second-guess which printing company and pressman ran this and at what time of day or night,” Johnson adds. “Many of the printing variables are just eliminated. That allows me time to focus on more important things, like implementing a new marketing idea.” She’s used some of that recovered time to design just-in-time special projects, like a limitededition Super Bowl product. “We only needed 200,000 for the winning team’s market,” Johnson says, “and speed-to-market was critical.” Because the Artico design team is very familiar with the press’ color range, it was able to quickly design packages for both team’s markets without the expense of extra spot colors. The agency had the design for the winning team printed digitally after the Super Bowl champion was announced. “The print delivery was three times faster than we could ever do with traditional print methods,” Johnson says.
5. Making production proofs affordable Boutique personal care products manufacturer Carol’s Daughter (New York, NY) was looking to update its package designs when its printer, Logotech Inc. (Fairfield, NJ), recommended making the switch to digital printing. “One of the things in our new designs was this canvas-grid background,” says Carol’s Daughter
senior packaging development manager Kenney Tonge. “Leslie [Gurland, president of Logotech] and her team said the best way to hold the details in this background was to print it digitally.” The package printer did more than just guarantee that it could print the canvas background; it provided production proofs at a price that Carol’s Daughter could afford. “With a traditional press, print trial time and costs can become very prohibitive,” says Tonge. “Digital printing was better at giving us the flexibility to see a production proof before printing the whole order.” Because of the lower cost for press time, Carol’s Daughter could explore various design directions and make changes quickly based on consumer feedback. As of Q4 2011, the beauty brand had rolled out new designs for 95% of its product line. With advances in DAM and digital printing technologies, package designers no longer need to compromise quality for speed-to-market. Creatives who use these technologies smartly are rewarded with more design flexibility, shorter turnaround times, fewer mistakes, and time to dream up that next big branding idea. PD PACKAGEDESIGNMAG.COM
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PRODUCT FOCUS
PACKAGE AND LABEL SUBSTRATES
Performance Art New substrates and components deliver branding benefits, eco-credentials, and functionality.
1
Custom Cradle Package www.ibcshell.com
u
Cradle packaging is custom-manufactured using corrugated board, solid bleached sulfate (SBS) laminate, and Mylar film. The carton pictured here needed an especially robust construction because it holds a 1.75-L Chivas bottle and its metallic cradle. The packaging structure was built from E-flute coated, 10-pt SBS, and 1-mil Mylar film. It was then printed and finished using seven colors, a tinted satin varnish, a secondary high-gloss patterned sealer, and micro-embossing. 2
Shrink Sleeves www.overnightlabels.com
v
Scuff-resistant shrink sleeves are reverse-printed to offer a resilient 360degree messaging area. They can be applied to unusually shaped bottles and containers, which would be difficult to silk screen. The sleeves mask uneven fill lines and provide additional protection against bottle breakage. 3
Molded-fiber Bottle www.BerlinPackaging.com/ecobottle
w
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JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
The eco.bottle is a hybrid fiber-plastic package with a molded fiber shell and recyclable inner plastic pouch. The compostable shell is made from 100% recycled materials (70% recycled cardboard boxes and 30% old newspapers), which can be recycled up to seven more times. The thin inner pouch requires up to 70% less plastic to manufacture than rigid plastic containers do.
4
Smooth Paperboard www.clearwaterpaper.com Candesce has an ultra-smooth printing surface that enables images to be printed in sharp detail. The paper is manufactured to perform well in post-press processes, including folding, die-cutting, foil stamping, and embossing. On-label FSCor SFI-certification is also available in the paper’s full caliper range.
5
Flip-top Cap www.personalcare.promens.com Designed for use with skin- and hair-care containers, the Delight flip-top cap has a flat top that can be used as the bottle’s base. This feature allows consumers to store personal care product bottles upside down for easier dispensing. The eco-friendly polypropylene cap weighs less than 6 grams.
How sweet it is.
VersaUV LEC Series UV printer/cutters
y
x
“With the VersaUV, we can produce prototypes on actual press substrates and show exactly what the final piece will look like.” Marek Skrzynski, Bridge Premedia, a division of CSW, Inc.
Imagine producing prototypes as real as the real thing, with ease. Print, varnish, emboss, score and diecut on actual press substrates like paper, shrink film, foil, BOPP, PE, and PET. All with a single device, the VersaUV. And when you’re not prototyping, it’s perfect for short run jobs like custom labels. See what the VersaUV can do for you. It’s sweet indeed.
For a video on how CSW puts the VersaUV to use, visit pd.rolanddga.com.
PRODUCT FOCUS
PACKAGE AND LABEL SUBSTRATES
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Printed Shrink Film www.clysar.com
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Printed shrink film offers a 360-degree billboard area for branding information, special offers, or seasonal packaging messaging. The polyolefin can be printed with up to eight colors.
7
Transparent Security Package www.hlpklearfold.com The Klearfold Keeper combines a printed plastic sleeve and a vacuum-formed tray, which holds the package’s contents firmly during distribution. The tray can be specified in a variety of shapes, including cat’s eye, rectangular, round, and oval, for differentiation on shelf. All package components are made from clear plastic, which enables consumers to easily view the contents before purchase. The patent-pending structure has a locking mechanism for package security and a thumb-notch perforation for easy opening.
10
8
Sleeve Film www.enhanceyourbrand.com Polyphane Fit is a roll-fed sleeve film that was engineered primarily for beverage applications. It delivers shrink ratios up to 50%, which enables brand managers and packaging designers to use the label with a range of contoured bottles.
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12 Mimaki CJV30-60_PD0411_Layout 1 10/21/11 3:45 PM Page 1
11
9
Special-effect Film www.aurorasef.com Aurora Special-effect Film is an iridescent film made without metallization or pigments. Instead, the package and label film, available in widths up to 62 in., creates color effects by refracting light.
10
Tear Tape for Clamshell Packaging www.payne-worldwide.com Payne’s Elements printed tapes are designed as an alternative to heat sealing clamshell packages. The tape’s perforated lip enables a consumer to easily open packages without knives or scissors. The consumer pulls the perforated lip to tear the tape and release both halves of the clamshell.
11
Stone Paper www.GetFiberStone.com FiberStone Natural Stone Paper can be made into eco-friendly, waterproof labels. The natural stone powder used to make the paper gives it a silk-like finish. Because the paper isn’t made from trees, each ton produced saves 20 trees, 16,000 gallons of water, and 36,000 BTUs of energy.
SHRINK WRAP POUCHES POLY BAGS METALLIZED FILM ADHESIVE FILM LABELS
Cut new paths in packaging comps.
The ONE machine for flexible film comps, samples & labels. u Print and then contour
cut with the same roll-to-roll system. u Select from odorless ES3 & fastdrying SS21 hard solvent inks. u Close-view 1440dpi, variable dot technology. u Die-cut & half-cut functions with precision crop mark detection. u CJV30 Series available in four sizes: 24”, 40”, 54”, 64”
24” Print/Cut System 12
Holographic Label www.wspackaging.com PromoPrism film is a patented prismatic label stock that consists of a paper base with permanent adhesive and a polyester film with a clear over-laminate. The structure creates a holographic rainbow effect.
Silver ES3 ink for eye-catching metallic effects! WHITE INK for over and under printing on clear & color media.
Use the CJV30-60 with JetComp film media. See more at www.prooftech.com
www.mimakiusa.com ATL
888-530-3988
© 2011, Mimaki USA, Inc
BOS
888-530-3986
CHI
888-530-3985 LA 888-530-3987 EMAIL info17@mimakiusa.com
PRODUCT FOCUS
13
PACKAGE AND LABEL SUBSTRATES
Shrink-label Rolls
13
www.printpack.com
The best resource for books, videos, and CDs for the visual communications industries.
bookstore.stmediagroup.com
Printpack’s Acro Affinia products are roll-applied shrink labels engineered to offer up to 65% shrinkage. Because the labels shrink tightly onto the packages, they enhance the branding benefits of unusually shaped bottles by accentuating the containers’ contours.
NOT PICTURED Heavyweight, Coated Paper www.mwv.com MWV Tango’s line of coated papers has been extended to include coated oneside (C1S) heavyweight papers in thicknesses up to 24 pt (or the weight equivalent of 170-lb. cover). The heavyweight sheets have the same brightness score (92) and clean-white shade as other papers in the Tango product line, which includes sheets as thin as 8 pt.
Kraftliner www.m-real.com Kemiart Lite+ is M-real’s doublecoated, white-top kraftliner for flexo postprint. The smoother surface combined with high brightness enables the printing of half-tone pictures with excellent gloss and color density.
Linen-textured Paperboard
Paper Bio-film Structure www.innoviafilms.com A new film structure is being tested by Innovia Films and Sappi Fine Paper Europe for use in the food, confectionery, and pharmaceutical industries. The structure uses Innovia’s cellulosebased NatureFlex film and Sappi’s Algro Nature and Leine Nature papers. NatureFlex films comply with compostable standards for packaging, including EN13432, AS4736, and ASTM D6400, thus the paper-and-film structure is also compostable.
Over-laminate Film www.TorayFilms.com Lumirror U65V is a UV-stabilized, polyester, over-laminate film that protects labels and products against light damage. The film specifically prevents fading and yellowing of labels.
www.caraustar.com ES Cream and ES Natural line of coated paperboards was developed for eco-minded designers looking for a natural fabric look. The surface mimics the appearance and texture of linen and is available in cream and a natural brown color. The papers are made in the U.S. in thicknesses from 12- to 28pt, and their manufacturing process reportedly uses less energy and water than conventional coated paperboard.
Lightweight Papers www.twinriverspaper.com Two lightweight options extend the Acadia NSR uncoated paper line. The 15and 16-lb. papers are FDA-compliant and available in wet-strength options. The Acadia NSR paper line’s expanded weight range is now 15 to 75 lb. PD
DATEBOOK
May 22-24 EastPack Pennsylvania Convention Center, Philadelphia www.canontradeshows.com | 310-445-4200
February 2012 Feb 23-26 Contract Packaging Association Annual Meeting Gran Melia Hotel & Resort, Rio Grande, Puerto Rico www.contractpackaging.org | 630-544-5053
June 2012 June 17-19 Summer Fancy Food Show Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C. www.specialtyfood.com | 212-482-6440
March 2012 March 6-8 HealthPack 2012 Hyatt Regency Albuquerque, Albuquerque www.innovativetechnologyconferences.com | 630-544-5051
June 17-21 IAPRI World Packaging Conference Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA www.iapri2012.com | 805-756-2129
March 7-8 Packaging Innovations Barcelona CCIB-Forum, Barcelona, Spain www.easyfairs.com | +34 91 151 67 92
June 19-21 HBA Global Expo Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York www.hbaexpo.com | 609-759-4700
March 12-16 Brasilpack Anhembi Show Pavilion, Sao Paulo, Brazil www.semanainternacional.com.br/en | +55 11 30 60 49 07 March 14-15 TexasPack Fort Worth Convention Center, Fort Worth, TX www.texaspackshow.com | 310-445-4200 March 28-29 Luxe Pack Shanghai Shanghai International Convention Center, Shanghai, China www.luxepackshanghai.com | +33 4 74 73 42 33
AD INDEX
April 2012 April 1-5 NPE2012 Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, FL www.npe.org | 202-974-5200
27
April 3-5 Sustainable Packaging Symposium 2012 Houston Hilton, Houston, TX www.sustainablepackagingsymposium.com | 646-495-1396
IFC
Esko
25
FUSE
Insert
3
HBA Expo
9
HLP Klearfold
Insert
HLP Klearfold
Insert
Interbrand Corp.
45
1
5, IBC
13
Paperboard Packaging Council
15
Payne
43
Roland DGA Corp.
46
ST Book Division
17
Sustainable Webinar
19
William Fox Munroe
OBC
21
April 18-20 Fuse 2012 Westin Chicago River North, Chicago www.iirusa.com/fuse/fuse-home.xml | 888-670-8200 April 18-19 International Sleeve Label Conference & Exhibition 2012 Hyatt Regency Hotel, Cincinnati, OH www.awa-bv.com | 312-943-4091
May 2012 May 1-3 Interphex 2012 Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, New York www.interphex.com | 888-334-8704 May 2-3 SouthPack Charlotte Convention Center, Charlotte, NC southpackshow.com | 310-445-4200 May 16-17 Luxe Pack New York The Metropolitan Pavilion & Altman Building, New York www.luxepack.com | 212-274-8508
Clearwater Paper
Hazen Paper Co.
Mimaki USA OKI Data Americas PackageDesignMag.com
WS Packaging Yupo Corp.
PACKAGEDESIGNMAG.COM
47
GLOBESPOTTING
BY LYNN DORNBLASER
Canning the Canister A private-label coffee brand offers a more relaxed approach to coffee packaging.
VITAL STATISTICS CONTENTS
20 coffee pads GOAL
Fun and functional packaging to compete with name-brand coffees TARGET
Coffee afi cionados looking for an economical, single-serve choice MATERIAL
Multi-layer laminate fi lm DECORATIVE PROCESS
Gravure
THE PRODUCT This is no standard, rigid canister. It’s a flexible package for coffee pads.
THE PERSPECTIVE Hailing from Penny Markt, a discount retailer in Germany, this flexible multi-laminate package for single-use coffee pads is an economical choice. The film packaging offers cost savings and productproduction benefits, especially when it’s paired with a resealable closure. After consumption, the package collapses down to almost nothing. Thus, it’s a great solution for consumers looking to reduce their trash volume.
THE OPPORTUNITIES What really stands out about this package is how great it looks. The gloss of the film combined with the lush colors from the gravure printing give this package high shelf impact in the crowded coffee category. This helps Penny Markt’s store brand compete better with name-brand coffees.
THE INNOVATIONS We haven’t seen a package quite like this before. These types of coffee pods are typically sold in stand-up pouches. This package is an improvement because it takes up less space on consumer and retailer shelves. The lid adds to the novelty of this package because flexible packaging typically uses a zipper for reclosure.
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WHY WE LOVE IT It’s always great to see a substrate being used for a new package form. It’s especially interesting when the packaging innovation comes from a store brand versus a major brand.
FUTURE PROSPECTS This format would be great for any application where brand owners need bright, colorful graphics and consumers need to open and close the package multiple times. It could be a great fit for snack brands. In the U.S., a brand like Pringles could use this format for its unusual flavors to significantly enhance their shelf appeal. PD
Lynn Dornblaser (lynnd@mintel.com) is the director of CPG Trend Insight at Mintel International, working out of the company’s Chicago office.
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