Posts tagged “packaging”

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Listening to customer feedback? Twenty-Five Years of Post-it Notes (Thx, @susandra) – In '77, 3M decided to test-market. It failed to ignite interest. “When we did the follow-up research, there just weren’t a lot of people saying this was a product they wanted.”
    "We knew the test markets failed, but we just kept saying, ‘Maybe it was us. Maybe we did something wrong. Because it couldn’t be the product—the product was great.”
    To see for themselves how people responded to Post-it Notes, 2 execs cold-called offices, giving away samples and showing people how to use 'em. The responses were more enthusiastic. “Those things really were like cocaine. You got them into somebody’s hands, and they couldn’t help but play around with them.”
    1 more test was in order. They got newspapers to run stories about it. They festooned stationery stores with banner displays and point-of-purchase materials. 1000s of samples were sent to office managers, purchasing agents, lawyers, etc. People demonstrated it to potential customers. It was a huge success, and 3M decided to launch Post-Its.
  • Listening to customer feedback? Peter Arnell Explains Failed Tropicana Package Design – Big outcry over the Tropicana packaging design (which this suggests was NOT tested but that's hard to believe) led to a return to the previous packaging.
  • Listening to customer feedback? Malcolm Gladwell on the Aeron chair – The Aeron chair was originally despised and deemed ugly. It didn’t catch on for 2 years, and then it quickly became the most popular chair. Everyone came to love it. Gladwell concludes that people find responses about some topics extremely difficult to articulate. While they may think they dislike something (like the Aeron chair), in their hearts they may actually like it. There is a disconnect that causes people to express dislike in their heads while they actually like it in their hearts (and vice versa).
  • Listening to customer feedback? Hate Facebook's new look? You'll like it soon enough. – Slate advances the point that people react to change negatively but eventually get used to the change and make it work.
  • Listening to customer feedback? Problems With NBC’s ‘Parks & Recreation’ – When do you listen to negative feedback and when do you follow your vision? I think there's an important middle-ground that is often ignored: understanding what lies beneath that feedback and choosing carefully if and how to respond to it, or how to create supporting activities that help get over the barriers that the rejection points to

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • IxDA SF presents Interaction09 Redux – Saturday, March 14th – I'll be leading a condensed version of my IXDA workshop from Vancouver (Well we did all this research…now what), looking at a framework for transforming questions into answers, answers into insights, and insights into actions.
  • Steve's photos from Vancouver, Feb 2009 – I was in Vancouver to run a workshop at the IXDA conference and to visit family. Some of the photos will make their way into dedicated blog posts but meanwhile here's the whole set.
  • Juice is in the details – Tropicana's redesign is being heralded for the caps that look like oranges. We've got a carton in the fridge and it's as plain as plain can be, so I'm not sure where these great caps are lurking. Meanwhile, back in 2006 we were seeing orange-looking caps on Florida's Natural packaging.
  • Tropicana reverts to "classic" packaging after their crappy redesign is met with broad scorn – Mea pulpa: "Asked if he was chagrined that consumers rejected the changes he believed they wanted, Mr. Campbell replied: “I feel it’s the right thing to do, to innovate as a company. I wouldn’t want to stop innovating as a result of this. At the same time, if consumers are speaking, you have to listen.”"

ChittahChattah Quickies

  • Henry: High earner, not rich yet – [Blogging this purely for the acronym]
    "HENRYs, an acronym we'll use to describe people whose financial situation can be summed up by the phrase "high earners, not rich yet." (I coined the term for a Fortune story in 2003 on the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, the bane of the HENRYs.) Put simply, the HENRYs are the bulwark of the professional and entrepreneurial class that drives the economy. Look in the mirror, Fortune reader, and you'll probably see a HENRY."
  • INFLUENCE AT WORK – Proven Science for Business Success – Robert Cialdini's business site for his work on persuasion
  • Robert Cialdini designs program where utility customers get smileys or frownies on their bill in comparison with neighbors – Last April, it began sending out statements to 35,000 randomly selected customers, rating them on their energy use compared with that of neighbors in 100 homes of similar size that used the same heating fuel. The customers were also compared with the 20 neighbors who were especially efficient in saving energy.
  • Coca-Cola Deleting ‘Classic’ From Coke Label – The Coca-Cola Company is dropping the “Classic” from its red labels in some Southeast regions, and the word will be gone from all of its packaging by the summer, the company said Friday. The font size of the “Classic” has been shrinking in the last decade, and the company removed it from labels in Canada in 2007.

    The language on the side of the label where it now says “Coke original formula” will change to say “Coke Classic original formula.” “Every place else in the world it is called Coca-Cola, except for in North America."

Packaging Surprise

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sourcreamopen

Daisy Sour Cream has supposedly been offering Fresh Thinking on their foil seals for several years, but I just noticed it, and was pleasantly surprised. They took an opportunity to create a front-of-house experience when I was expecting a back-of-house experience. They’ve used printing technology to enable a richer experience: they aren’t simply reinforcing their logo after you’ve already purchased; they are providing content that plays emotionally at the most emotional point of usage – when the product is first opened (I’d suggest the multisensory stimulus and associated anticipation is more emotional than eating it, even).

The foil seals on our containers do have a functional purpose – to keep our products their absolute freshest and safest for our consumers. But we wanted them to do more than that. So a few years ago, we created our “Fresh Thinking” foil seals, featuring uplifting, positive thoughts from Daisy. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we do creating them.

Previously:

Candy-coated history

The other day I saw some unfamiliar M&Ms packaging in a local drugstore.

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The Retro Tube!

I wondered whether this was truly a reissue of an old packaging style or just a marketing ploy—a “remember a time that never was” kind of thing—and I asked an older woman in front of me whether she remembered M&Ms ever having come in that kind of package in the past. She said no, she didn’t.

But, some quick internet research reveals that, in fact, M&Ms really did come in a tube when they were first introduced as “a compact, durable food source for troops during World War II.” (Source: candywarehouse.com)

Not only was this bit of history interesting to learn, but it led to my discovering this really cool interface on the Mars company’s M&M history page.

Related Posts:
Great food and packaging pictures
The New Yorker profiles Roald Dahl

Putting research results back on the shelf

I blogged previously about our research with a wine brand. The other day I was in the store and saw that the packaging redesign, informed by our work, is on the shelf!

Landor did the design work in creating the new Stone Cellars package, informed by our exploration of how Beringer’s customers were thinking about, talking about, and making meaning with wine and its packaging. One piece that emerged very strongly was that the folks we were talking to really wanted to associate a sense of place with any wine they had a relationship with, and that is prominent in the new design.

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Stone Cellars, before

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Stone Cellars, after

And on sale, too!

Swallowing innovation

Coca-Cola is running a three-page ad in the Sunday paper.

As part of our ongoing commitment to finding new ways to suit your changing tastes and needs, we’re always working to develop innovative options. We’d like to say thanks for the inspiration. And please stay tuned, because it’s just a taste of things to come. To learn more about our latest innovations….

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image adjusted to fit your screen

I noticed the use of innovation twice in their copy and as much as I like to throw the word around, I’m often troubled when I see how it’s being used by others. I think most of us find new brands or new products or new packages interesting (granted, some of us more than others!), but the small can (for example) isn’t new.

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Mini cans of Pepsi, Burlington, ON, 2004

The ad also reminded me of an image from 2005, showing just the diet beverages sold by Pepsi.
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That’s a lot of choice! But good luck trying get a handle on how many different things Coke sells. It’s impressive and overwhelming. Their huge list of brands (worldwide) is here and a virtual, global vending machine is here.

Meanwhile, Oroweat is doing their small-packaging bit with new smaller bags of bread.
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I wondered what has changed that necessitates this new package? Are breadboxes getting smaller? According to their site, the smaller bread package came out at the beginning of 2007 (emphases mine)

New Smaller Loaves Fit with Industry Trend of Reduced Size Options

The unique line of mini-sized variety breads are perfect for smaller households or families that like to buy several different varieties of bread. Although the loaves are smaller in size, they deliver the flavor and quality known from Oroweat.

“We all like the freshest bread and many consumers have told us they cannot finish a full size loaf of bread before its expiration date. Oroweat Mini Loaves are the perfect solution for smaller households that typically toss away a portion of a loaf of bread,” said Dan Larson, Oroweat Marketing Director. “Mini Loaves also make it easier to enjoy a variety of breads for different occasions; including 100% Whole Wheat with whole grain nutrition, and Country Buttermilk, a favorite for the perfect grilled cheese sandwich! Now you can have both. This is one more example of Oroweat’s innovative thinking to offer new options that are important to our consumers.”

With the average number of people per household just over two in the United Sates, smaller size offerings are gaining attention in the food industry. Keeping an eye on trends and listening to consumers, Oroweat is one of the first bread companies to introduce smaller loaves. Last year, Oroweat successfully introduced premium buns in four-count packages.

Oroweat confirms it, then. Small packaging is innovative thinking.

Fruit 2.0

It’s great to see an awareness of user experience popping up in humble, low-tech places. Grabbing an apple yesterday, I discovered the small arrow pictured below at the top of the sticker, telling me exactly how to get the label off my fruit. Delightful. No apple under my fingernails on this one.

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User Interface

And last week, I had another fruit-related experience that, while not as unequivocally positive, was still thought-provoking.

I poured myself a bowl of cereal-no raisins. Looked all through the plastic liner bag-no raisins. Figured I had defective cereal. Then I noticed a little yellow callout on the box-“Stay Fresh Fruit Pouch Inside Box.”

Sure enough, there it was at the bottom of the box-a silver foil pouch full of raisins. The experience promised by Health Valley on the pouch: eternally fresh, plump raisins and my choice as to the cereal/raisin ratio for each bowl.

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Custom Cereal

While I still think I prefer having my cereal pre-mixed and ready-to-pour, I do appreciate the concept of this approach-the appeal to freshness and personal tailoring. Though I’d suggest that Health Valley do a better job calling attention to their packaging system, so that people don’t have to go through the same terrible moment of perceived raisinlessness that I did.

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