Showing posts with label Brand-Packaging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brand-Packaging. Show all posts

18.5.09

Before and After: VO5 Elixirs



After




"The unique expertise of Vo5 hair care is deeply rooted in its 5 vital oils. Over the years, the product line had grown and yet the original meaning of the masterbrand had been lost, especially on pack. Our exploration uncovered a way to actively capture the blend of essential oils.
Also inspiring to us was the new “light up your magic” positioning, so we walked away from a consistent bottle color in favor of a more sophisticated and luminous color palette that reflects the translucent qualities of the oils themselves."

10.5.09

Packaging . Innovation


Behold, the pizza box we've all been waiting for! Watch the film for a simple demonstration of how a few smart-thinking tweaks to an established design can radically improve customer experience.

The company behind the Green Box is called Environmentally Conscious Organization Incorporated, and their ingenious idea sees the traditional pizza delivery box transform into into four handy serving 'plates' AND a half-sized storage solution for any remaining slices... Made out of 100% recycled material, the box is protected by US Patent 7,051,919 which we firmly hope will allow e.c.o. Incorporated to cash-in on their innovation.


Give the hairy few weeks the Domino's brand has just endured, if you worked there wouldn't you be all over this?A good news story that could leave the public with a better impression of the brand than simply 'cheese up the nose'...

www.ecoincorporated.com




30.4.09

Steve Haslip — Hangerpak

The concept was fairly simple:
I buy t-shirts online and they always come wrinkled and I always run out of coat-hangers. So I designed a sustainable, reusable way to send and keep your t-shirts.


As you open the package you create a coat hanger.The packaging could be made from recycled material whether it is card or plastic and the only waste is the green tear-away tab.
The t-shirt seen here is from Threadless.

28.4.09

Doritos Seriously

"A concept to cover the full range of Doritos products and promotion. Based on the distinctive triangular corn chips in the form of warning signs, the design highlights the bold and intense flavours of Doritos















Silver Hills Bakery:::Before and After


Brand:Silver Hills Bakery
Country: Canada


The new creative concept was prompted by an insight discovered during brand strategy development that the bakery’s “Squirrelly” bread had higher brand recognition and recall than the Silver Hills’ parent brand.

Karacters Design Group’s brand identity experts used this insight as an interesting naming strategy for the other breads and counseled Silver Hills to rename them with the following unusual, unique names: Squirrelly, The Kings Kamut, Hemptation, The Big 16, Little Big Bread, Hardy Hearty Harvest, Mack’s Flax, Marvelous Multi, Radiant Raisin and Steady Eddie.
The re-branded packaging has a distinct shelf presence that beckons to be picked up and examined. Using solid, matte colours, which are unusual for the category, the colourful, biodegradable bags include witty illustrations by Robert Hanson. The lighthearted illustrations evoke the new names visually and cleverly incorporate captivating bread windows to display the product.
“The sliced bread category is very dull and one dimensional with most brands sharing the same visual wheat sheaf-cues, functional descriptors and clichéd good-for-you health claims.

Our goal was to develop new packaging that would break through the homogeneity and connect with consumers in a humanistic way,” says James Bateman, creative director, Karacters Design Group. “The witty illustrations and unique names engage customers on an emotional level that makes you want to smile, while the short stories reveal the authenticity and integrity behind each carefully crafted loaf.”

31.3.09

Multisensory Media

Smelly Postage Stamps
Australia Post spokesman Noel Leahy said the stamp was a sensory explosion "sure to rekindle warm feelings for every romantic out there".
Mr Leahy said he hoped the initiative would encourage lovebirds to shy away from sending a less romantic email or SMS on February 14 this year.
"Sending an SMS or email doesn’t have the same impact as a card you choose personally and accompany with a hand-written message of love," he said in a statement.
"The value of a heartfelt love letter and scented stamp is priceless."

Smelly packaging shall enforce impulse purchases
The scent of chocolate is now being incorporated into a new packaging method with hopes that it will induce impulse purchasing in would-be consumers. ‘Chocolatine,’ as the product is being called, doesn’t have any specific product ties yet. At this stage, it’s basically a new style of glass capsule designed to emit fragrances and distribute them over long periods of time. The project combines technologies from Eastman Chemical Company, Eurofragance, Rotuba and EJ Pack.
Rotuba is responsible for the development of the jar lid that captures the fragrance of Chocolatine, which also has notes of vanilla and orange. In time, project developers say that the smelly packaging could be used to market products such as DVDs. Also, here’s a Chocolatine press release from EMG


A Commercial You Smell
Nivea was the first company to utilize scent to add a new dimension of realism to cinema advertising. As moviegoers watched a typical beach setting, the scent of suntan lotion filled the theater. The ad, ending with the line, “Nivea. The smell of summer.” engaged a sense that is always on. The scent tapped into people’s memory and invoked a psychological trigger that significantly increased the ad’s impact. Exit polls showed a 515% higher rate of recall compared to the same ad shown without the scent.



Collateral You Touch
In Portugal, 4,500 new cases of breast cancer are detected annually. Roche, the world’s largest cancer-treating drug company, is raising curiosity and generating awareness regarding the importance of self-exams using stress balls with a “lump” inside and the message: “You don’t see breast cancer. You feel it. Do the self-exam.” By physically squeezing the ball, women were shown what to look for and just how vital self-exams are. There program has inspired a 22% increase in mammograms and 28% in hospital visits





A Billboard You Taste
Instead of just talking about how good their chocolate tastes or showing an appealing visual, Thorntons Chocolate Company decided to actually let people try their product with an edible billboard. Thorntons created the world’s first chocolate billboard (just in time for Easter) consisting of ten massive chocolate bunnies, 72 giant chocolate eggs and 128 panels made of pure chocolate. People walking by were encouraged to sample pieces of the 860-lb. 14.5×9.5 foot billboard and have a literal taste of the product.

24.3.09

Before & After: Svedka Vodka

"The new bottle for Svedka imported Swedish vodka had to be bilingual: It needed to speak to younger scenesters who consider themselves “in the know” and hang out at trendy nightspots as well as an older, more affluent consumer who likes to have a drink at home. This meant the packaging had to look equally attractive lit up on the back-bar of a hip club as well as lining a club store’s shelf, said Marina Hahn, svp, marketing for Spirits Marque One, Svedka’s U.S. importer."






Holli Mølle Organic Flour

The Norwegian design agency, Strømme Throndsen Design, has developed the brand strategy, name, concept, packaging and visual identity of Holli Mølle Organic Flour .







Holli Mølle is a small organic mill in Eastern Norway, specializing in flour production with the use of ancient and nutritious grain types. The target audience is modern women who value health and nutrition and are willing to pay extra for the safety and taste of organic flour, thereby providing them with an extra feeling of love and care for their family.

In creating the name, visual language and packaging for Holli Mølle, the following criteria were highlighted:- The identity should be based on traditional and authentic values- The packaging should be environmental friendly, functional, flexible and efficient in production.- The identity should challenge the existing visual language in the flour category


The result is a simple and unique graphical design, with fresh colours on the labels as the only differentiator between the 6 variants. The design communicates well with the target group, giving them a feeling that the flour really is ”ground with love”, as stated on the packaging in the personal message from the owner, Trygve Nesje

Big Rock Brewery







Rachelle Hynes, a student at Capilano University, recently took the opportunity to redesign the packaging for Big Rock Brewery.

"Big Rock brewery is a grass roots company that is 100% natural. By incorporating illustrations and a flat colour theme, it illuminates their image and gives a unique look amongst its competitors

23.3.09

Boxed Water is Better: A new water brand ditches the bottle.


A new water brand ditches the bottle.
About 90% of the Boxed Water container is made from renewable resources, trees, which are sourced from certified, ethically managed forests. The package shape and material means the boxes can be shipped flat to the water plant. Because more boxes can fit in a truck than bottles, Boxed Water requires fewer truckloads and, thus, less carbon expenditure.































Full Credit
Client: Boxed Water is Better
Designer: Benjamin Edgar






















"[We] started with the simple idea of creating a new bottled water brand that is kinder to the environment and gives back a bit. We found that water shouldn't be bottled at all, but instead, boxed. So we looked to the past for inspiration in the century old beverage container and decided to keep things simple, sustainable and beautiful.About 90% of the Boxed Water container is made from a renewable resource, trees, that when harvested in a responsible, managed and ethical way serve as an amazing renewable resource that benefits the environment even as it's renewed. Our carbon footprint is dramatically lower because our boxes are shipped flat to our filler and filled only as demand is created, as opposed to most bottled water companies that ship their empty bottles across the globe to be filled, then ship them back for consumption. The flat, unfilled boxes can fit on 2 pallets, or roughly 5% of a truckload. Empty plastic or glass bottles would require about 5 truckloads. Our cartons can also be broken down to their original flat state, are recyclable in most areas and will be recyclable everywhere shortly. We're also giving 20% of our profits back to the resources our product is composed of--water and trees. Not only does it simply make sense, but we really enjoy supporting water and forestation organizations as it's part of our company's ethos and way of thinking to give back and participate. All that and an over-arching focus on simple and beautiful design that compliments our brand as well as the spaces it's sold and consumed in."

20.3.09

Herederos de lopez Wine



Three labels for three different qualities of this wine.
- Young wine (2008)
- Aging wine (2006)
- Vintage wine (1989)
Designer:
Nuria Herrero
Country: Spain

Tropicana "Squeeze"


Brand: Tropicana Pure Premium Fruit Juices
Agency: Arnell Group
Review Date: January 09, 2009
I'm torn over Arnell's "Squeeze" campaign for Tropicana. The name does immediately bring freshly squeezed orange juice to mind, and the "It's a natural" tag deftly suggests the 100 percent pure premium nature of the brand. The new carton's also pretty snappy.
My problem: The over-bright, sugary sweetness of the visuals. They're straight outta Mad Men-era chirpy-family sitcoms like Leave It to Beaver or Make Room for Daddy. Such idealized families were Hollywood inventions, even when Ike and JFK sat in the Oval Office.
We all know families fight like cats and dogs at the breakfast table; bratty brothers are lucky to survive.
Tropicana's perfectly posed A.M.-hugs imagery turns my disposition a tad sour. Ah well, it's a fine line between sweet and sappy -- and 100 percent purely a matter of personal taste.




16.3.09

Lessons from Tropicana’s Fruitless Design

By Jennifer Gidman
It’s a revamp-gone-wrong tale that has already secured its place in the annals of packaging: PepsiCo retains Arnell Group to redesign its Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice cartons as part of its new ad campaign. Said cartons make their aisle debut in January, minus the familiar straw-punctured orange and sporting a modernized depiction of—well, fresh-squeezed juice. Consumers revolt and demand the old packaging back. Two months and a reported US$ 35 million later, PepsiCo reverts back to the original Tropicana packaging, straw between its legs (and back on the carton).
There’s nothing unusual about a perennial product revisiting its packaging, labels or logos in an attempt to bring outdated aesthetics up to par with an enduring brand message. Camel cigarettes underwent its first package redesign in 90 years in 2008. Bacardi, which has been distilling spirits since the 1860s, has updated its bottles to “reflect the sophisticated consumer environment.” And then there’s Pepsi, which introduced a new logo last fall (Arnell Group was also responsible for this design do-over, to mixed reviews).
But if the brand is still enjoying hefty market share, why putter around with its packaging? Tropicana has historically dominated number-two Minute Maid (owned by PepsiCo rival Coca-Cola) in the OJ category. “Sometimes [package redesign] has nothing to do with the business at all—it [comes] down to the new personnel working on the brand, hell-bent on making a mark on their career,” says Dyfed “Fred” Richards, executive creative director, North America, for global branding consultancy Interbrand, which also produces brandchannel. “It’s sometimes difficult for brand managers to demonstrate growth of a brand they’re being tasked to manage and grow.
But a new package design associated with those changes demonstrates these changes.”
The agencies commissioned for a redesign may also share some of the blame for failed packaging overhauls—think about if Mad Men creative director Don Draper’s powers of persuasion were magnified by corporate fears of losing market share in a depressed economy. “Design companies should be asking far smarter questions at the outset of the changes to really understand the reasons for the change,” Richards says. “Sadly, many [of these] companies enjoy the design process so much that design for design’s sake takes over, and all reason jumps out of the window for the benefit of a trend or effect they’ve wanted to try.”
Could this be what happened with the Arnell Group redesign strategy for the Pepsi logo that leaked onto the Internet last year? In the 27-page report, simply titled “Breathtaking,” the authors cite such lofty influences as the golden rectangle (that aesthetically pleasing formula found in architectural and artistic masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and the Parthenon); magnetic geodynamics; and Hindu numerical harmonics as all leading up to the design revolution that is the new Pepsi logo.
This is excessive profundity for a visual representation that, at the risk of oversimplifying the process, just took the old logo, rotated it and distorted the white middle wave. And while there’s plenty in the report about brand geometry, perimeter oscillations and color theory, what’s notable is a lack of discussion of either the product itself or the consumer.
Arnell Group still hasn’t verified the report as being authentic. However, Peter Arnell’s somewhat rambling defense of the Tropicana debacle is comprised of similar stream-of-consciousness associations between squeezing oranges, hugging children, and ensuring consistency between the purity of the juice and the carton. Combine this with the grammatically awkward tagline, “Squeeze…It’s a Natural,” and you’re left to wonder: is this branding genius or simply marketing mumbo-jumbo?
Extreme Package Makeover
With properly ascertained research and consumer feedback, however, a brand can, and should, make an informed decision to redesign its packaging or logo. “Any brand should be looking at itself in the mirror 24/7 and measuring itself against all its competitors,” Richards says. “If a brand is in a leadership position, then it should be protecting and leveraging those key equities at all times in an effort to reinforce the reasons why it’s the market leader.”
All parties involved need to carefully tread the redesign waters. “Understand the brand’s history,” Richards explains. “Talk to and listen to loyal consumers. This isn’t about sticking a pretty label on a box and hoping you win a design award. All the assets of the brand need careful evaluation to find out equity stretch points and equities that are sacrosanct to the consumer. More often than not, you’re not designing for your client, and certainly not for yourself—you’re designing for the consumer.”
Even after studying the ins and outs of a brand, there’s still that slippery slope to navigate in contemporizing an iconic brand’s packaging, label or logo while still retaining its most identifiable elements and the equity it’s built up over the years. “There’s a fine line between being relevant and being trendy,” Richards explains. “Updating requires a craft that can only be learned over many years of experience. I always tell my designers that working on the less glamorous brands is character-building [work], not on the boutique brands that essentially come and go and fall prey to the latest tricks and trends.”
While designers should be aware of the new designs around them, they should be careful of what they leverage in their day-to-day dealings with brands they are charged to develop, Richards says. “I ask all of my designers to keep personal scrapbooks that are evaluated on a regular basis in one-on-one sessions,” he says. “I want to see what’s motivating them, what inspires them. It could be a ticket stub from a concert or a great piece of type from an ad—it doesn’t matter, as long as they are curious [about] the world around them and download the information in a book rather than carrying this information as graphic noise in their heads. That noise might then become an impure insert into a brand’s future that won’t resonate with the consumer.”

Pulp Friction
Tropicana’s carton conundrum is a compelling story on a couple of fronts. First, there’s the juicy, schadenfreude-esque media obsession—the panned carton was one of the most blogged topics the week of February 23–27, behind only the machinations of President Obama’s new administration, according to the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s New Media Index.
But even more unusual has been the astonishing backlash from a usually silent, brand-loyal contingent, and PepsiCo’s eventual acquiescence to these vitamin C devotees. Feedback on the design, relayed to PepsiCo via letters, phone calls and e-mails, has ranged from deeming the cartons “ugly” to expressing outright confusion—some customers passed right by Tropicana cartons on store shelves, mistaking the new packaging for private-label offerings. “What’s evident from my experience and perspective is that key equities of the brand were thrown away for a generic offering, and consumers reacted,” Richards says.
Despite such a marketing blunder, however, Tropicana-gate has demonstrated that the brand’s followers cared enough about the brand to effect change. “I think it’s a blessing for Pepsi that the consumers didn’t react by walking away from the brand,” Richards says. “We all remember what happened with
New Coke.”
In these troubling economic times, this type of loyalty is an indicator of what roles brands play in our lives. “The rise of private label is clear (64 percent last year), and orange juice is a commodity category,” Richards says. “But consumers need their ‘comfort brands’—eventually the message [of these comfort brands] will get through, and consumers become incredibly powerful brand advocates. So when the message changes in such a dramatic fashion, as it did with Tropicana, the consumer feels betrayed.”
Revolution among the common folk is starting to resonate with the brands they’re revolting against. Facebook users, for instance, recently took issue with certain amendments to the site’s terms of service. As a result, the social-networking platform temporarily
reverted back to its old terms. And when CBS canceled the prime-time TV show Jericho, disgruntled fans delivered 20 tons of peanuts to CBS offices (the network cracked and resurrected the show).
There are brands that have taken consumer opinion one step further, involving the public in actual packaging makeovers. Nestlé, for example, is
tapping into social media to elicit consumer input for new packaging for its Goobers, Sno-Caps and Oh Henry! candy lines (the package redesign that gets the most votes will be on shelves by the end of 2009). And in celebration of its 150th anniversary, Eight O’Clock Coffee is letting consumers direct its packaging facelift by registering their votes at CoffeeMaker.com (with a chance to win a year’s worth of groceries to boot).
Of course, there’s empowering consumers with some say, and then there’s giving the consumers a laptop loaded with graphic-design software and directing them to redesign the packaging from scratch. “I’m a firm believer in engaging consumers at every level of the design process,” Richards says. “Listen to them first, show them what they know, listen again. Then think about what you’ve heard—put images to the spoken word and play them back. Ensure there’s a clear meaning behind every image and every word. Go on a shopping trip with the consumer from the moment the grocery list is being created to the point of selection at shelf to purchase to use in the home; do the same thing yourself. But don’t let the client or consumer design: brand design is a craft, not a beauty contest.”
So it’s back to the drawing board (or maybe not) for Tropicana. The old cartons are expected to reappear on store shelves this month. The only remnants of the US$ 35 million Arnell experiment will be the cute, orange-shaped plastic caps, which will be retained on cartons of low-calorie Trop50. The advertising campaign that’s currently in place will also continue.
Perhaps this could have all been avoided if PepsiCo had sought out real consumer input in the first place. “Respect the brand and the role it has to play in the hearts and minds of the consumer,” Richards says. “Use the product: How does it taste, smell, sound, feel in your hands—how does it perform? Do you understand it? Can you appreciate why other consumers get excited by it? Go on that consumer journey.”
Once you’ve taken that step, you’ll be able to embark on a successful packaging redesign if that’s what’s needed. “Many brands successfully update their look and feel on a regular basis with very little effect on the loyal consumer—that’s the craft of branding,” Richards says. “When you go back and look at packaging through the ages, especially the power brands that have stood the test of time through decades of changes and consumer trends, they offer a unique insight of how to develop and manage key equities and remain relevant to the consumer of today and tomorrow.”

Jennifer Gidman uses OJ as a breakfast supplement every morning and as an indispensable ingredient in her mixology experiments every Friday night.


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NEW YORK (YouTube.com/AdAge) -- Pepsico's Tropicana brand is junking the new orange juice package design it only just launched weeks ago. The beverage marketer is switching back to its old design whose centerpiece is a orange skewered by a drinking straw. In this video recorded at a press conference five weeks ago, Arnell Group CEO Peter Arnell vigorously defends his agency's carton design that has now been withdrawn from the market.


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