May 9, 2007 · Number 8

DESIGN FORUM: Can Adult Package Designs Be Both Fun and Innocent?

Spykes (www.spykeme.com/main.aspx) is a new alcohol product sold by Anheuser-Busch. Spykes comes in two-ounce bottles that are mildly reminiscent of nail polish bottles. The flavored concoctions (Spicy Mango, Hot Melons, Spicy Lime, and Hot Chocolate) of alcohol, caffeine, ginseng, and guarana are meant to be added to other drinks or beer for extra flavor and kick. Some news organizations ran stories on the negative public reaction to the bottles, because some citizens are concerned that the brand design and packaging are targeted at teenagers.

We asked a panel of experts—Rob Wallace, Amy Graver, Bill Wynkoop, and Aniko Hullner—two questions: What are some ways to avoid the negative public reaction in bringing out an adult product in colorful or fun packaging? Is the public reaction worth worrying about, because a negative reaction might be the same even if designers "toned down" the packaging?

Rob Wallace, managing partner of Wallace Church Inc., New York City
Can a fun and involving spirits brand be designed to target the 21+ consumer without attracting teens? Sure! The fact that today's teens are more visually literate and aspire more to sophisticated brands than ever before makes this a challenge. But the challenge can be met head on.

In my view, Spyke's specific identity misses the mark. The spiked icon and stylized "S" is already somewhat cliché, overplayed and less than adult-sophisticated. In an effort to reach urbane, contemporary, and elite club-goers—and therefore disenfranchise teens—brands need to move to the level of the unexpected and the undiscovered!

Amy Graver, president of Elements, LLC, New Haven, CT
Prior to a product going to market, there's no foolproof way to anticipate a negative public reaction to its packaging (focus groups don't always reveal any issues). After the product is in the market, little can be done to manage perception problems.

In addition to developing a look and feel consistent with the client's objectives, package designers must understand their branding goals and find smart, strategic ways to get them there. And since negative publicity is rarely a goal, if it's reasonable to anticipate an issue, we have an obligation to find—or at least suggest looking for—solutions that lessen or avoid potential backlash. I suspect some designers will avoid the subject for fear of treading the slippery surface of the moral high road. Clients understand my only consideration is their best interest. I tell them it's better to take free advice on the front end than pay for damage control on the back end.

Bill Wynkoop, lead creative with Lazer Design Services, Rochester, NY
Spykes as a flavor additive for alcohol is an interesting concept, but, aside from the parental concerns about the product and its appeal to the underage market, I'm just not a fan of the packaging. With this introduction, Anheuser-Busch has brought four unique flavors into the market, which combined with their bold colors would normally hold major allure for this consumer.

But the shape of the package is out of sync to me. It looks like a toiletry, which gives me great pause about its consumption and that's before acknowledging any other concerns. Regarding the aforementioned parental objections, I would think Anheuser-Busch could have avoided all of the backlash if they had taken a hard look at the potential reaction to this product because of one singular point—why does it have to contain malt liquor?

Aniko Hullner, CEO of the Kitchen Collaborative, Los Angeles
Alcohol and cigarettes have always been the two of the top ethical dilemmas in our industry. As designers, our goal is to take the essence of the product and articulate that visually—both with the branding and the packaging. However, our work always goes back to the nature of the product itself. When given the challenge of branding a product that will inherently appeal to a younger market, whether intentionally or not, there is not much a designer can do to curb its appeal to young people. Fruit flavors combined with an adult product is always a recipe for underage consumption.

Marketing and advertising can also play a huge role in product appeal to children. When Mike Salisbury created the Joe Camel character, he in no way intended to solicit children. The character simply became so popular and recognizable that the appeal eventually became universal and inevitable.

The point here is this was clearly an adult product and was intended to be marketed that way—the fact that children found the character highly recognizable was just a byproduct of the success of the campaign. On the other hand, companies creating fruit-flavored or other novelty cigarettes are a different story. In this instance, the product itself would clearly appeal to a younger audience regardless of branding and packaging.

DESIGN:
Seal-It's Shrink Labels Decorate Earth-tone Garden Products

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Seal-It, a division of Printpack Inc., has produced three different full sleeve labels for the introduction of the Espoma Company's Earth-tone® garden control products. Espoma wanted to offer a unique and distinctive look for its Earth-tone 3n1 Disease Control, Insect Control, and 4n1 Weed Control products, and Seal-It helped develop the solution.

The trigger spray bottle required a label that would conform to the shape of the bottle and provide coverage for the entire package. Espoma wanted to convey soft colors indicative of colors in a garden. The answer was shrink labels made of heat shrink PETG, each label in reverse printed gravure in eight colors. The graphics were created to have visual impact on the store shelf and each label reflects what the bottle contains.

The front panel features the product name and the image of what the product does. The back panel provides directions for use and other product information. David Love, general manager of Seal-It Inc says: "Espoma wanted a non industrial look and they wanted to stay away from 'me-too' packaging. The PETG Seal-It label works extremely well for this application."

STRUCTURE:
RPC Containers Produces Coffee Cups for Kraft's Kenco FreshSeal

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Kenco FreshSeal is Kraft's system for ready-to-serve hot drinks, ideal for travel, leisure and sports environments. Ingredients are contained within the cup and sealed for freshness. When required, the seal is broken and hot water added to make the drink.

Kraft wanted to reinvigorate Kenco FreshSeal with an improved cup design that retained all the functionality of the original but with a more modern image and enhanced consumer experience. The solution was to switch from the existing dry offset printed injection molded PP version to a new ribbed design with a full wraparound board shroud. This offers a number of advantages for consumers and for the brand, while retaining the internal pod in the cup base that enables integral sealing of the beverage powder.

The ribs and shroud combine to provide improved insulation to protect the consumer from the hot contents, a wide base diameter provides improved stability, while the rim has been redesigned for better sip characteristics. In addition, the shroud offers the opportunity for full-length decoration and high-quality graphics for more effective branding.

From their initial design concept, Kraft foods worked with Cambridgeshire-based 42 Technology to create cup technical drawings, and then RPC Hereford recommended minor modifications to translate this into a working pack. RPC Hereford manufactured samples using a single cavity pilot mould before full tooling was commissioned, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the design.

RPC Hereford developed some key design features on the cup, such as the cup rim rolling design for effective lid fit and drink enjoyment, as well as a device which allowed zero tolerance of the cup wrap with the base of the cup. The site has invested in new molding machines and automatic handling and packaging equipment to manufacture the cups.

MATERIAL:
StoraEnso Launches LumiLabel G Premium Coffee Packaging Paper

StoraEnso Specialty Papers will launch LumiLabel G, a new high-end flexible packaging paper specifically designed for premium coffee wrapper packaging, at Packaging Summit Europe in June. This new high-gloss and high-brightness flexible packaging paper was developed in response to requests from coffee brand owners for an environmentally friendly wrapper paper that supports complex print graphics and withstands the rigors of high-speed coffee packaging processes.

"With the introduction of LumiLabel G, StoraEnso now offers a premium paper solution for premium coffees," says Eckhard Kallies, vice president of packaging papers. "LumiLabel G is an innovative alternative to plastic wrappers and allows brand owners to increase the sustainability of their packaging without compromising product design and production."

LumiLabel G is a one-side coated high-gloss and high-brightness wrapper paper featuring excellent print-side smoothness and ink holdout for high-fidelity process printing. LumiLabel G has high opacity for good laminated brightness and is proven to run well in high-speed packaging lines. This product offers the sustainable packaging advantage of paper over plastic outer wrappers, since paper is a renewable resource derived from wood fiber. LumiLabel G is produced at StoraEnso's Imatra Mill in Finland. For more about LumiLabel G, click www.storaenso.com/specialtypapers.

WEBINAR: "Optimizing Item-Level Track-and-Trace Solutions with Application-Specific RFID Tags"

RFID Product News and RCD Technology present analysis of an interesting RFID case study on May 22 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The use of RFID in the car wash industry is still a relatively new concept with some smudges that need buffing before implementation. RFID could make an ideally simplistic solution for club and fleet account holders by individually tagging and registering vehicles for identification upon entering the carwash. This approach offers accuracy that other methods of vehicle identification (such as License Plate Recognition) cannot match, but presents more implementation questions rather than answers.

RFID Product News and sponsor RCD Technology will be holding a webinar session to examine the pros and cons of RFID enabled car wash systems. The webinar will be held on May 22 at 11:30 a.m. eastern time, and features presentations by:

• Ann Grackin, CEO of ChainLink presenting "Innovations in RFID"
• Robert Oberle, Chief Technology Officer of RCD Technology presenting "Development of Application Specific Identification Tags: Factors for Success"
• Mike Ruiz, Chief Information Officer of Innovative Control presenting "Unique RFID Application for the Car Wash Industry"

Participation is limited. Please register here.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Ampac Packaging has announced its acquisition of Mohawk Northern Plastics, a leading manufacturer of frozen food and fresh produce flexible packaging. Mohawk Northern Plastics in Auburn, WA, is a fully-integrated flexible packaging manufacturer providing products to the food, beverage, home and garden, and industrial markets.

Known for its high-performance Apex2000® and Apex3000® coextruded films, its full-service prepress capabilities, and its high-quality, 10-color flexographic printing processes, Mohawk is an industry-leading supplier of products for frozen foods and fresh produce packaging in North America. Mohawk recently invested heavily in extruding, pre-press, and process printing equipment enabling it to become a leader among frozen food flexible packaging companies. These new assets enable Mohawk to manage cost-effectively the large number of SKUs that are required by its branded and private label customers in these markets. For more information, visit Ampac's website at www.ampaconline.com.

 
Karstedt Associates and Spikix have announced that they will author a benchmark research study on the use of inkjet printing technologies for package printing. Globally recognized experts in the use of InkJet technologies, digital printing, and package printing, Karstedt Associates and Spikix are teaming up to develop a report mapping the latest developments in InkJet technologies and the future of their integration into full graphic package printing systems.

Rob Haak, general manager of Spikix and co-author of the study, says: "Over the next decade printing systems that employ InkJet technologies will replace some of the dominant printing tools, workflows and supply chain practices being used today. These systems will have a major impact on how packaging is created, printed, distributed and managed, and could truly be a disruptive technology."

Digital printing for packaging applications has grown steadily over the past ten years. Kevin Karstedt, president of Karstedt Associates, co-author of the study, has been deeply immersed in digital printing for packaging since the early days. Karstedt says: "This is a very exciting time in this industry, new InkJet technologies are emerging from well-known and lesser-known laboratories around the world that will enable the next generation of InkJet digital printing systems. This study will identify these new technologies and, more importantly, give insights into their development and use over the next ten years."

WHITE PAPER: Satellite Design's Combating Icon Overload

Icons are everywhere. From packaging to advertising, marketers make extensive use of graphic symbols to communicate brand and product attributes. But like any other design element, they must be used well to communicate effectively, and Satellite Design in San Francisco offers a primer on how to evaluate the role of graphic symbols in your marketing communications. To download this and other white papers, visit the Satellite Design white paper page here.