From Yuck to Yeah!: Can Dispensers Make You Look Forward to Chores?

By Ron Romanik

Many retail, consumer, and production goals were met by this user-friendly container.

Let's face it, most household chores are unpleasant because of the chemical residues that irritate your skin during chores and afterwards. If only you didn't have to touch these products, you'd look forward to many chores...well, maybe. (If a package took out the garbage as well, that might be something.)

All kidding aside, today's package designers are challenged to make a package do everything but take out the garbage. The ideal package must sell the product from the shelf, maximize volume and footprint space, manufacture and fill efficiently, invite frequent use, perform ergonomically, dispense perfectly, store easily, and encourage recycling. When redesigning a package for an existing brand, there's the added pressure of retaining the brand experience with loyal customers.

The Lebanon Seaboard Corporation is a leader in lawn and garden supplies based in Lebanon, PA. Recent extensive research told Lebanon Seaboard that consumers recognized its Preen Weed Preventer product as a category leader but that the packaging had shortcomings and would benefit greatly from a new structure.

Maryanne Bayoumy, Preen brand manager, laid out the packaging challenge to 4sight inc., a structural package innovation firm based in New York City, to devise a new structure that would meet consumer, retail, and manufacturing goals within a strict budget and within a few months. Bayoumy also asked Brandesign Inc., a Monroe Township, NJ, firm to rethink the logo and label.

Communicating purpose

4sight inc. believes package structure can build brand loyalty as much as—or more than—attractive graphics or logos. 4sight developed many simple, straightforward solutions for the Preen Weed Preventer container. First off, a new rectangular bottle with a more secure, ergonomic grip area achieved better balance when dispensing. In fact, when picking up the package with the handle, the bottle naturally falls into the dispensing position.

"We incorporated an open side handle instead of retaining the grip at the top allowing users to carry the bottle more easily," explains Stuart Leslie, president of 4sight inc. "The new handle also helps consumers remove the package from shelves in the correct orientation—right side up." The new structure also maximized billboard space for label graphics, and all the graphic and structural elements communicate the purpose and ease-of-use of the product at first glance.

The Brandesign firm brought a more contemporary brand message to the Preen label, and created motion on the label with curved elements and strong sub-brand identifiers. They convinced Preen to go with a deep green for the Preen logo and to drop "'nGreen" from all products in the Weed Preventer line.

4sight rose to the challenge when designing a new cap that was easier, cleaner, and more intuitive to use. The brand new flip-down closure has a chute dispenser that meters the product and a fan-like end that scatters the weed prevention pellets. The fan and its color contrast from the cap is yet another element that communicates purpose at first glance.

Leslie believes that the concept of "control" is very important in this category, and the cap imparts an expectation of controlled application. "If people feel like they are in better control, they have better control," says Leslie. The ergonomic handle reinforces that feeling of control with a comfortable spot for the user's thumb, textured surfaces, and subtle finger notches.

The container was also designed within strict production, filling, and sealing parameters set by Lebanon Seaboard, and 4sight visited the production plant to understand all the requirements. Finally, the new package provided greater product volume (20%) in a similar retail footprint size to the original, and it conformed to the 11" retail height restrictions.

In retail environments, early results indicate that purchase consideration has doubled, and most consumers prefer the new design compared to the former package. Even though it can't yet take the garbage from the garage to the curb, the Preen Weed Preventer package does plenty enough to applaud every design element in isolation and as a whole, and say: "Wow! What a package!"