Package Design | Sunrise Packaging Blog

Posts Tagged ‘package design’

Coffee Company Take Risk by Changing Iconic Packaging

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Eight O’ Clock Coffee has been around a long, long time. With lasting power comes a rich history. As one would imagine, the company has gained a loyal customer base having such a rich history which sometimes makes change a very hard and risky endeavor. With that said, Eight O’ Clock Coffee has recently taken a risk by changing their iconic red packaging that has given their coffee the same look for as long as anyone alive on this earth can remember.

In taking such a risk, Eight O’ Clock Coffee had two priorities: First, to design their packaging so that loyal customers could still relate to the product. Second, to implement a fresh look into their package that would attract new (younger) customers.

To tackle the first challenge, the new package design carries over a number of key qualities from the old package including the same classic logo and color coding for the different varieties. The words “New Look Same Great Taste” are also featured in the new packaging to ensure that the package is different but the product is the same.

As for attracting the younger customer to their product, Eight O’ Clock Coffee gave their packaging a contemporary look that is bold, crisp, and refreshing.

To develop designs further, the company went to its customers for input using sweepstakes as one method and also interacting with their customers on Facebook as another. Sweepstakes asked their customers to vote on different packaging designs while offering chances to win up to $5,000 worth of groceries for the year. To roll out the new packaging, Eight O’ Clock Coffee put a game on their Facebook page where fans can win daily prizes of free coffee by matching the old packaging with the new packaging within a certain time frame. The brand has been using Facebook to grow its fanbase and sales within the last few years and it’s working.

Founded in 1959, Eight O’ Clock Coffee has a history of involving their customers in company decisions. In fact, that’s how the company got its name. According to legend, the company came up with the name by conducting a survey asking people what time of day they drank coffee most. The majority of those surveyed reported that they typically drank coffee at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., which is why company went with the name “Eight O’Clock Coffee.”

Tags:caffeine, coffee, facebook, package design, packaging
Posted in Custom Packaging Products, Social Media | No Comments »

7 Elements of Effective Brand Packaging

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

The appearance of packaging tells a story about a company’s brand or image. Realizing that packaging always has a negative or positive influence on the consumer is a vital concept for company’s when making decisions about packaging. How can you employ packaging that is a fundamental part of your brand identity?

Look at these 7 Elements of Effective Brand Packaging:

1. The Story- Does your packaging communicate a story? Brand packaging should communicate or a story or promise to consumers. A vision of what unique experience the product delivers should be embedded in the packaging.

2. The Personality- A package’s visual style and written words express the tone and personality of the brand. The personality should align with the brand story in a genuine way.

3. The Position- Brand packaging should convey the unique position of a product and identify for consumers how the brand is different.

4. The Look- The look & feel of brand packaging should be distinctive. The colors, style, and graphics give the packaging a recognizable element that makes a brand stronger.

5. The Materials- Brand packaging must use materials and structures to its advantage. Unique shapes can make packaging immediately recognizable. Eco-friendly materials can demonstrate leadership and responsibility.

6. The Appeal- Brands frequently rely on visual cues but customers also experience packages through other senses including touch, smell, and sound. Brand packaging can appeal to multiple senses.

7. The Consistency- Brand packaging should align with brand strategy. Consumers should be able to connect the dots and understand the continuity of the brand elements, story, and experience.

Tags:brand packaging, consumer, identity, Marketing, package design
Posted in Marketing, Packaging Design | No Comments »

Custom Packaging for Kids

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

What can put you in a better mood today than to look at a few creative packaging designs for kids? We all know that food tastes better, camping is safer, and tissues are stronger with cartoon-themed packages.

This packaging design concept for Birdy-Juice comes from Jeksel. Don’t really know much about it other than it comes in 3 different flavors, is not out yet, and has very creative custom packaging.

Packaging for kid-friendly animal tissue boxes. Paco the parrot, Fredo the turtle and Teo the tiger will be launched early September 2010 in the Eastern European market, under the ZEWA brand. The package design idea is intended to make a tissue box more attractive for children- maybe to encourage them to go to the tissue box rather than use their clothes.

International Design Consultancy P&W has designed a new range of Kids’ cereals. Cookie Bites, Cocoa Sharks, and Apple & Cinnamon Smiles are free of artificial colorings and flavors and contain less sugar than many of the mainstream brands. Bright colors and cute cartoon characters encompass the packaging hoping to catch the attention of children from the cereal shelves in the grocery store. We all know that there is FIERCE competition.

Beautiful packaging design concept and illustrations by Sutasinee C. Seitz. The idea was to design a promotional piece to encourage family bonding through camping. The pieces are based on campfire activities- an over-sized matchbox, owl lantern, bear s’mores, bird harmonica, and fire fox fire starters make up the camping kit.

Tags:camping, cartoon, cereal, children, creative, custom packaging, juice, kids, kleenex, Marketing, package design
Posted in Custom Packaging Products, Packaging Design | No Comments »

The Future of Packaging, Part 2.

Monday, August 16th, 2010

In 2010, 27% of products at major US retailers are estimated to have sustainable packaging. By 2015, this figure is projected to reach 37%.

Despite a global recession, escalating environmental pressures from consumers, the media, and legislators have put pressure on manufacturers to emphasize innovation in design, choice of materials, processing, and life cycle logistics. In fact, green packaging is the only sector of packaging that has continued to show growth. This evidence tells us that the future of packaging is in sustainability.

Environmentally conscious decisions now must revolutionize packaging design and drive the bottom-line of companies. Consumers are becoming increasingly educated on what sustainability is to the extent that they can, and will, call out companies for greenwashing (deceptive use of green marketing in order to promote a misleading perception that a company’s policies or products are environmentally friendly).

Walmart continues to be on the forefront of sustainable packaging in the retail arena. Although the retail giant has achieved many of its environmental goals such as plastic bag reduction, it continues to be unable to eliminate PVC from private-label packaging. As sustainable packaging evolves, Walmart will continue to strive in achieving its PVC elimination goals.

Many other large companies are following suit including Proctor & Gamble. Very recently, they announced plans to use sugarcane-derived plastic on selected packaging for its Pantene Pro-V, Covergirl and Max Factor brands to increase its sustainability credentials. The strategy by P&G is completely consumer-driven. Their research shows that women around the world want to make themselves more beautiful without making their environment less beautiful.

Amazon and Mattel team up to implement their own green packaging innovation. Dubbing it Frustration Free Packaging (FFP), its intention is to stray away from plastic packaging that is difficult to open. Especially in regards to toy packaging, Mattel found that consumers were livid about the complexity of opening up toys from their plastic and twist-tie inundated mess. Frustration Free Packaging is recyclable and is designed to be opened without the use of a box cutter or knife and will protect your product just as well as traditional packaging.

The key to all of this is that consumer feedback from companies like these has been extremely positive. If customer’s are pleased and recognizing sustainable packaging efforts, the demand will continue to increase just as experts suspect that it will.

Tags:Amazon, consumers, environment, frustration free, greenwashing, innovation, package design, retail, sustainable packaging, Walmart
Posted in Eco-Friendly | No Comments »

Packaging with Banana Leaves

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

In today’s world, packaging is often looked at as wasteful, largely because the packaging usually outlives the products that they protect. But packaging is extremely important. It provides protection to keep products safe in transport and on shelves as well as information for consumers to make the right purchasing decision. With that said, researchers realize the importance of packaging while taking environmental concerns into consideration in an effort to source sustainable materials that can be used for packaging. We’ve blogged about many of them. Recently, coconuts have been tested for different packaging applications. Others include algae-based plastics, sugarcane plastics, mushroom stems, and the list goes on.

Now the newest development in eco-friendly packaging material is banana leaves (at least until we run across something else….maybe next week). Israeli designer named Tal Marco has taken a decidedly low-tech and refreshing approach to package design with his use of natural banana leaves which are an abundant resource in many regions around the world. Their wax-like surface is ideal for food packaging specifically because they work well with wet and greasy foods. However, the leaves are very flexible and can last a long time after being cut from banana trees. Therefore, they can be adapted to many types of packaging.

These banana leaf packages that are pictured are cut to form using die cutting technology. Die cut leaves can be folded into numerous forms lending themselves to many retail applications. No glue is used. The unique qualities of this material allow packages to be opened simply by tearing the banana leaf along its natural perforation.

Tags:banana, Eco-Friendly, Food Packaging, green packaging, innovation, package design, sustainable
Posted in Eco-Friendly | No Comments »

Roadkill Packaging?

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Yes, this is disgusting, but it was too intriguing not to share. In the packaging world, we call this, I dunno, “Bizarre packaging”?

Scottish brewery, BrewDog, has pushed the boundaries for both brewing and packaging beer. This specific blonde Belgian ale is called “The End of History” and has 55% alcohol content. The crazy-high alcohol content easily makes it the strongest beer in the world. It’s infused with fresh juniper berries and nettles picked from the Scottish Highlands. Extreme freezing techniques were used to induce the insane levels of alcohol.

What would an extreme ale like this be without extreme packaging? Roadkill packaging to be exact. That’s right, an actual taxidermist took care of the packaging of this brew using salvaged roadkill that was tailored specifically for bottling purposes.

James Watt, one of BrewDog’s co-founders, said they were trying to push the boundaries of convention when it comes to beer. “For us, we’ve always been huge fans of art and taxidermy,” he said. “Since it’s our final installment in our series of high-alcohol beers, we wanted to do something special, completely different for the packaging and the response from the people who drink our beer has been fantastic.”

Only twelve bottles have been made from squirrel and stoat bodies holding a hefty price tag of $765 per 12oz bottle. Hmm, I am rendered speechless…..

Tags:ale, beer, bottle, custom, package design, roadkill, Scottish, squirell, taxidermy
Posted in Packaging Design | No Comments »

It’s A Clever Little Bag

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

PUMA has introduced some very innovative packaging for their shoes that could change the way shoes are packaged in the future. Dubbed “Clever Little Bag”, the packaging and distribution system will reduce the paper used for shoeboxes by 65% and carbon emissions by 10,000 tons per year.

Partnering with San Francisco designer, Yves Behar, the “Clever Little Bag” will replace the cardboard shoebox with a fashionable reusable shoe bag. Not only does the bag serve as a great protector, it is a very efficient and eco-friendly way to get their popular shoes into the hands of consumers.

PUMA will be generating huge savings on the production side using fewer raw materials, less water and energy to produce, and less weight to ship and be disposed of. Further, they will be reducing consumption on a manufacturing level by more than 60% per year- approximately 8,500 tons less paper will be consumed, 20 million Megajoules of electricity saved, and 264,000 gallons of fuel oil and water saved. During transport, 132,000 gallons of diesel fuel will be saved. Due to the replacement of traditional shopping bags, up to 275 tons of plastic can be saved with the use of the “Clever Little Bag”.

By 2015, PUMA is aiming to implement fully sustainable packaging for all of their product lines. Some other things that are on the horizon in the near term are sustainable bags for all apparel collections which estimate in saving 29 million plastic bags per year. Also, PUMA T-shirts will be folded one more time to reduce packaging size and CO2 emissions and costs during transport.

More info:
PUMA Vision

Tags:Eco-Friendly, innovative, package design, shoes, sneakers, sustainable packaging
Posted in Eco-Friendly, Packaging Design | No Comments »

Barnum Changes Packaging, Raises Social Awareness

Monday, April 26th, 2010

You know this package above. It probably brings back memories. Sitting in a shopping cart while your parent(s) were getting groceries and seeing the all too familiar animal cracker package with all of the aminals (I mean animals) and shouting, “Can I get these? Can I get these? Please??” Or if you have kids it might be in a much more recent memory bank. I know my little one has been know to ask persistently for them while we’re cruising the isles. One big observation here: The packaging for Barnum’s Animal Crackers (The animals and the primary colors) haven’t changed a bit since I can remember.

Well guess what? They’ve made a temporary departure from the classic package design to raise social awareness. Barnum made a $100,000 contribution toward protecting endangered Asian Tigers through the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) and for a limited time, are putting a Lilly Pulitzer-designed package on the shelf. Pulitzer’s company is a long supporter of environmental organizations so it was a great fit!
The Lilly box design features animals drawn in her fanciful style and a pastel color palette. Quite different from Barnum’s traditional packaging design approach. The package also incorporates a call-out for the brand’s donation to WWF and WWF’s panda logo. The design helps contemporize the brand by associating it with a relevant, timely issue. One million of the boxes have hit retail shelves in March.

Pulitzer and Barnum’s Facebook and Twitter pages have been the primary source of promotion for the new box. Through social media, the campaign has generated tremendous buzz online about the design change and support of the Asian Tigers. The effort has also created great business results so far for Barnum. including a healthy sales lift.

More info:
Lilly Pulitzer
Media Post

Tags:animal crackers, asian tigers, branding, endangered species, lilly pulitzer, Marketing, package design
Posted in Marketing, Packaging Design | No Comments »

The Measure of Package Design

Monday, April 19th, 2010

Most companies instinctively know that good design makes good business sense. However, companies are at a loss on how to quantify its effectiveness. Without measurable data, package design will always be seen as an expense rather than an investment.

It is so important to understand the impact packaging can have on a product in order to justify it. To understand the impact we need to know what role packaging design is going to play in a particular instance.

The primary role of packaging design of course is a brand identifier. For new brands, packaging is a link to other symbolic associations, playing more of an educational role. By accepting design as a link to brand meaning rather than the brand meaning itself, it becomes easier to specify the quantifiable measures that packaging and design can be evaluated on.

Effective packaging will have a direct impact on the growth of a brand. This can be measured in volume or value of sales. Consumers are driven by emotions and purchase instinctively. Packaging can be a heavily persuasive influence on a consumer if it stands out and link’s to a consumer’s positive perception. With established brands, if packaging changes, you have sales figures to measure against that help identify the impact that design can have on growth.

Margin is another measurable factor that package design has on a product. A brand’s margin is affected by the prices it sells and the costs related to producing the product. Packaging design will directly influence the retail price of a brand. If a product is packaged effectively it will send strong triggers of its brand’s world, reinforcing consumer links to the product. At that point, the purchase will be made no matter the price. Elements in package design that initiate those triggers give their brands opportunities to generate higher margins.

So while packaging design is an expense for a company, it should also be looked at as an investment. Seeking influential package design should be based on what type of role that the packaging will play. If done effectively, packaging certainly contributes meaningfully to a company’s bottom line.

More info:
Brand Packaging

Tags:brand awareness, branding, consumer decision, gross margin, package design, product growth
Posted in Custom Packaging Products, New Products, Packaging Design, Product Information | No Comments »