RESEARCH: Applied Ethnography

OfficeMax and Gravity Tank Develop
Elegantly Sleek Writing Tools and Packages

OfficeMax and Gravity Tank designed the TUL pens and packaging at the same time, to be integrated and in harmony with each other.

OfficeMax management had been thinking for some time about how to take their products and store to the next level, and they would hold intensive brainstorming sessions to this end. One idea that took root on fertile soil was implemented last year was to develop and manufacture the first truly OfficeMax product. While not quite reinventing the wheel, they did reinvent the pen and its packaging to dramatic effect.

The new writing tool line, branded TUL (with a line over the "U"), was designed from start to finish with packaging and store presentation always in the front of the designers' minds. Very early on in the process, OfficeMax called on Gravity Tank Inc., a Chicago design and innovation firm, because of their experience in ethnographic research and in retail product and package design.

They also tapped another valuable resource—the thoughts, opinions, and experience of their own employees. Mike Kitz, vice president of brand development for OfficeMax, put together a cross-functional team of OfficeMax associates from marketing, visual planning, in-store personnel, outside sales, brand management, and store management. "We wanted to have products that are uniquely ours, and we wanted to have a cross-company collaboration to make that happen," says Kitz.

The minimalist TUL approach is also evident in the OfficeMax in-store displays, which showcase the product with little sales or feature text.

The writing on the wall

OfficeMax wanted to build brand loyalty by creating high-quality, highly stylized everyday pens that would retail at a reasonable price. They wanted pens that would feel just right in consumers' hands and also meet exacting manufacturing standards. The broader OfficeMax strategy was that providing meaningfully different affordable pens would have a positive halo effect and brand association for their customers' entire shopping experience.

Gravity Tank firm members conducted extensive research into customer buying habits when purchasing pens. As the researchers observed shoppers in stores or browsers on a test-market website, they asked the customers why they bought certain pens. "People really struggled to shop this category," says Michael Winnick, Gravity Tank's managing director.

Both the overall pen market and pen package design are surprisingly undifferentiated—a typical OfficeMax has 32 linear feet of writing instruments in a uniformly confusing display. "All of the vendors decided to package in the same way," Winnick explains, noting that even color palettes were similar between competitors. Winnick and Gravity Tank impressed upon OfficeMax that packaging was going to be important in this product launch project.

Gravity Tank employs an art they call "applied ethnography." This qualitative, observational research hopes to spark inspiration by gaining insight into, or empathy for, the shopper as they shop for the product, open the packaging, and actually use the product. Designer Robert Zolna explains how the qualitative research in the pen aisle of the stores taught the researchers a great deal about the category. Consumers would spend 15 or 20 minutes looking for their specific favorite pen. "People take pens very seriously," Zolna acknowledges, even if the packaging did not match that seriousness.

OfficeMax was going to take pens seriously as well with design at the forefront, and compete with established brands by making pens that were sharp, sophisticated, functional, and value-priced. The TUL manufacturers would also use the best inks and higher quality metal tip cones for each gel and roller ball pen instead of plastic used by inferior brands.

Getting to the point

Gravity Tank felt that most pen packages carry too much information, and research showed that excess feature information on pen packages was not very useful to consumers or, worse, confusing. The TUL products take a minimalist approach, both on the pens and on the packages. The entire TUL line of writing instruments features minimal decoration and simple, straight lines. The packaging is clear and the copy on it intentionally short and straightforward.

Gravity Tank asked the not-so-rhetorical question: "What's the least amount of information we can have and still make the customer comfortable?" Winnick believes that great design comes from "editing out" what isn't necessary or what doesn't work. Part of the process is producing and tweaking frequent prototype products and packages to test out.

"You can't discover what the market wants through a multiple choice survey," says Michael Winnick. "Consumers can't react to product choices that don't yet exist." Prototypes give clients a physical reality to relate to and discuss. "Our clients aren't spectators to the creative process; they bring critical perspectives that we uncover through our managed creative process," Winnick says.

Winnick believes they also succeeded in settling on a pointedly efficient and "functional" brand name, one that could also include a number of future category extensions. According to Kitz, the brand name was also chosen because it has a European feel, which most people associate with sleek design and good taste.

The dry erase line of TUL products extends OfficeMax's innovative approach to product and package design.

Integrating product and package

From the outset, Gravity Tank designed the TUL packages as the integral showcases for the products that would "frame" the product for the customer. "There's a lot of harmony between the product and packaging," Winnick says. "They are really ‘glued' together." In a way, the design of both product and packaging draws motifs of the product back up through the packaging.

Designer Robert Zolna explains how the packaging went through rounds of refinement to achieve the clean sophistication they were looking for. They also required precise manufacturing of the packaging to make it function efficiently and durably. In the months since the launch, anecdotal reports have surfaced where the oval packs are being reused to store other small office items.

Zolna also explains how Gravity Tank pushed for design and brand colors that went against the category to stand out, and how the recent rise of neutral colors in retail also affected the brush metal brand color decision for both pen and packaging. "It was a way to be neutral in a very sophisticated way," says Zolna. The all brush metal POP displays with black text make an immediate impact to store visitors, and full shelf-height brush metal end-caps command attention with very little billboard or feature text.