ماذا يجعل يعبّئ, اللون الأخضر?

سألنا واحدة من قارئاتنا أن يفسّر خضراء يعبّئ.

[ق]: ماذا يكون المعيار لجيّدة قابل للمحافظة يعبّئ?

وفقا ل واحدة زعيمة في ال يعبّئ وحلبة بيئيّ, [بكج متريلس] قابل للمحافظة يستطيع كنت صمّمت في أمريكا وحصلت من موقعات عالميّ نطاق (رغم أنّ إحساس عاديّة أشار أنّ أبعد يشحن يعبّئ إمداد تموين من آسيا أيّ فائدة خضراء) [أس لونغ س] ال يعبّئ يستطيع التقيت هذا تعريفات أساسيّة?

• يكون ال يعبّئ مفيدة, آمنة, ويصحّ لفردات وجماعات طوال [ليف سكل] ه?
• ال يعبّئ يلتقي سوق معايير لأداء وتكلفة?
• يكون ال يعبّئ [سورسد], صنع, ينقل ويعاد يستعمل [رنوبل نرج]?
• ال يعبّئ يزيد الإستعمال من متجدّدة أو يعاد مصدر [متريلس]?
• يكون ال يعبّئ يصنع يستعمل نظيفة إنتاج تكنولوجيا وممارسات جيّدة?
• يكون ال يعبّئ جعلت من [متريلس] يصحّ في كلّ محتملة [إند-وف-ليف] سيناريوهات?
• يكون ال يعبّئ طبيعيّا صمّمت أن يجعل [متريلس] وطاقة?
• يكون ال يعبّئ بشكل فعّال استردّت واستعملت في أحيائيّة [أند/ور] صناعيّة [كردل-تو-كردل] دورات?

سألتبنفسي هكذا إن أنت تكون [سورسنغ] [بكج متريلس] خضراء, أنّ أسئلة وأنت كنت خطوة عملاقة أمام منافستك عندما هو يأتي إلى أشياء مثل [ول-مرت]? [س] [سكركرد] وأخرى عمل وذاتية حكوميّة أنّ [كيب ترك وف] شركتك? [س] مبادرات خضراء.

قابل للمحافظة يعبّئ يشتري [دسسّيونس]

يقترح أخيرة يعبّئ فحص في صناعة نشر أنّ تقريبا نصف من مستهلكات أمريكيّة يعتبر [أن ور موش] [سوستينبيليتي] عاملات عندما يتسوّق لمنتوجات في مخازن.

يقترح الفحص أنّ ليس فحسب يكون المنتوجات مهمّة غير أنّ ال يعبّئ والمخزن حيث منتوجات يكون اشتريت أيضا يلعب دور. هذا معلومة استطاع كنت نفيسة إلى أنت عندما يصمّم أو [سورسنغ] [بكج متريلس].

بعض من الفحوصات أخرى نتيجة بحث يتضمّنون:

• يعتبر تقريبا 25% من المستجيبات اثنان أو كثير [سوستينبيليتي] إصدارات عندما يجعل شراء. Over 29% said that environmentally friendly packaging influenced the brands they bought, and 21% choose stores that carry a wide selection of products in sustainable packaging.
• Sustainability factors are most important in the households of aging baby boomers and those with less than four people. Larger households with smaller budgets may choose products with lower prices instead of sustainability.
• Failing to reach the 55-and-over market could be a problem for companies and retailers because they are missing a large part of their main consumer base.
• Conscious consumers direct most of their buying to drug stores rather than supercenters.
• High sustainability concerned customers have a higher purchase rate in food and beverages.

In terms of packaging, the survey recommends that companies and retailers do the following:

• Utilize all opportunities to reduce packaging and leverage recycled materials, reusable, and biodegradable materials among their private label products.
• Increase the availability of products with eco-friendly packaging.
• Optimize shelf-space as the package size is reduced.
• Signal all significant environmentally friendly packaging improvements.

As you can see, many factors go into making buying decisions for sustainable packaging.

External Influences Will Impact Your Packaging

Consider this recent headline: “Tesco pledges to cut packaging by a quarter…”

Supermarket giant Tesco today pledged to reduce by a quarter the amount of packaging used in both branded and own-label products within the next three years.

Uh-Oh! Are you worried? Well, you should be. External influences can shape the face of packaging materials for now and in the future. Many times this will be totally outside of your control. Legislation could be enacted, there could be a product security scare or another incident like 911. All of which could dramatically shape the success and failure of your product and its packaging.

Each January I write a packaging trends piece. It?s about where the packaging industry is going now and in the future and what external influences will drive that change. Trends are an important predictor of where the market is moving. Trends are more long lived than fads. Trends will influence product development for several years and sometimes they will become mainstream.

After reading the headline above, what?s your gut reaction? It better be that this is a serious trend. Not only is the reduction of packaging materials big news so is the use of environmentally friendly materials. What?s driving this trend? It is big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Tesco and more recently consumers.

Read this paragraph:

BENTONVILLE, Ark., ? Today at the second annual Sustainable Packaging Exposition, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) released the initial results of its Packaging Scorecard. The scorecard, which was officially unveiled at the Clinton Global Initiative in September 2006 and launched on February 1, 2007, evaluates Wal-Mart and Sam?s Club suppliers on the sustainability of their packaging and offers suggestions for improvement. The results from the first month of operation show active use of the scorecard and a strong interest from product suppliers to make their packaging more sustainable. The scorecard implementation is Wal-Mart?s next step in moving toward achieving a five percent reduction in packaging by 2013.

Are you getting the message loud and clear? It is plain and simple, material reduction and more sustainable packaging materials. If you are not considering this as part of your long term packaging plan, then you might have problems down the road. ?Green? is here to stay this time.

Besides the green movement what other factors can influence product packaging? What about product security and integrity? Given the rash of recent product recalls (for a variety of reasons) product security has become paramount. States could enact legislation or at the very least mandate that your product packaging has a tracking device. Now this is not the same as RFID, similar, but not the same. The latest devices allow you to track products all the way back to the field it was grown in and it provides a track back for every step along the way.

Some retailers may mandate that RFID be included on all product packaging. Will you be prepared? RFID interestingly is a two edged sword. There are some watchdog groups the feel that the RFID mandate is being taken too far. That is tracking what you buy, how you use it and ultimately how you dispose of it.

Recently, a major outlet demanded that all their vendors not only source their products but their packaging not from China but from the US. Trends like this are hard to ignore. If you are outsourcing your product and your packaging or even just the packaging to another country, do you have “Plan B” in place should this happen to you?

It?s your product and you will need to package it properly while being careful to keep all the external influences in mind. The warning signs are out there. Its up to you to look for them and anticipate the possible influence on your product.

About the Author:

JoAnn Hines is the Chief Executive Officer at J.R. Hines International, a firm providing consulting services in the packaging industry. For over 30 years, Ms. Hines has been engaged in packaging trends, forecasting, ideation/brainstorming and implementing innovative new packaging technologies.

Need insights on packaging trends that can impact your business? Get the Packaging Diva on your team. Visit PackagingUniversity.com to find out about the latest packaging innovations.

Prime Time Packaging

Are your packaged products ready for prime time? Here are a few insightful tips to help you out.

There are many packaging issues afloat in the minds of the consumer. We just came off the traditional “wrap rage” cycle that stirs everyone into a frenzy around the holidays. Be aware that it’s still an issue to contend with in the minds of the consumer. Clamshells, twist ties and difficult to open packages still get mileage in the media.

Packaging has many detractors. We are getting serious scrutiny from everyone in the realm of environmental sustainability, less packaging, more environmentally friendly packaging, save the earth packaging and so on. Every week I read about a new packaging crusade that is supposed to solve our environmental woes. But I have been researching for an upcoming presentation “Sustainable Packaging - From Green To Great”. The lack of new packaging innovation to solve the problem is quite distressing. Most of what I am seeing revolves around the same supplier using the same packaging materials. Unfortunately, a lot of it is smoke and mirrors that touts “green” but does not back it up with true sustainable documentation. There are a few good examples of innovation. In researching environmentally friendly lipstick tube examples, the results were woefully inadequate. “Cargo Plant Love Biodegradable Lipstick” was the only company I discover (with a great marketing story I might add).

So, I pose these questions to all product packaging developers. How green are you? Do you want to be? Do your consumers and your target demographic even care whether you are green or not? This is going to be one of the prime time packaging issues this year so you better make some serious strides in deciding what you want your product packaging to reflect.

Another key matter will be product security, integrity and product origination. Currently the “Made in China” tag is becoming a political hot button. One of the trends I am starting to see is a China backlash. Products made and packaged in China are coming back to the US. Some companies are using China Free on their product packaging as a marketing tool… and it’s helping sales.

People are reading labels and scrutinizing them. What it says on that label will influence whether they buy your product or not. I just read that cloned meat will be coming on the market in a few years. At present, the FDA won’t require food makers to label that their products came from cloned animals. I’d want to know from the product packaging and, I believe, so would most consumers. The point being is that any high profile package or product will be looked at thoroughly by consumers. What you tell them better be the right message and true.

Watchdog groups about and they are on the lookout for your product to make a mistake. Whether they deem you are marketing to an inappropriate market (an example would be Spykes marketing liquor to children) or that your packaging isn’t telling the whole truth (McDonald’s and all the other fast food companies and fat content), it’s sure to become newsworthy and in the worst case scenario could seriously impact your business.

Consumers are fickle. What is a hot issue today may be gone tomorrow. However, in the interim if you are not on target with the right packaging message you may alienate them or force them to buy a competitor’s product because your packaging is not sending the right packaging message.

So, before you embark on any new packaging campaign understand and incorporate into your product packaging what the consumer wants to know about the product. Be sure your packaging is ready for prime time to the right consumer with the right marketing message.

About the Author:

JoAnn Hines is the Chief Executive Officer at J.R. Hines International, a firm providing consulting services in the packaging industry. For over 30 years, Ms. Hines has been engaged in packaging trends, forecasting, ideation/brainstorming and implementing innovative new packaging technologies.

Need insights on packaging trends that can impact your business? Get the Packaging Diva on your team. Visit PackagingUniversity.com to find out about the latest packaging innovations.

Green Packaging

I just got a call from Brandweek to comment on green product packaging backlash. I’ve been writing about it for a while but this week reading about square milk bottles brought it all to a head.

While the idea of a square milk bottle looks good on paper and its attractive financially to the retailer, a lot of consumers hate it. It’s just like the bag of milk I discussed earlier its cumbersome and very consumer unfriendly and mostly likely will never fly here in the US no matter how environmentally friendly it is.

Every week I get dozens of new green packaging press releases. Some of these are really a stretch. Its seems with green the “in” thing to do, everyone is trying to jump on the band wagon. Many of these innovations really don’t make sense or in many cases won’t “connect” with the consumer.

Just because its green, environmentally friendly, sustainable, compostable, recyclable or biodegradable doesn’t mean that consumers will buy your product. Consumer acceptance is a very complicated issue. The growth of convenience and luxury categories flies in the face of the environmental movement too. They use lots of packaging and expensive too!

We want it and we want it now. If it happens to tap into the “green movement” so much the better. The average consumer really does care about the environment they just aren’t going to sacrifice their creature comforts to get there. In reality only about 10% of the American populace inhabit this space any way. Sure we can all use a little less packaging in our lives just take a look at your trash can. Remember however, without the package you cannot have a product so give packaging a break!

As I have said many times packaging has many roles to play ones in addition to protecting the product and getting it in your hands, attributes consumers will not willingly give up. Just think how you shy away from any damaged product packaging or reject the damaged or bruised product at the supermarket. The rejection rate is already 20% without packaging this would skyrocket. And who do you think pays the ultimate price for less packaging? It’s not the retailers or the consumer products companies, its you the consumer.

When was the last time you saw a sales person trained to tell you all about the item you are considering purchasing? The packaging tells you the story about what is inside and why you should buy it. You know the “silent salesperson.” So before you jump on the “less” packaging bandwagon give some consideration to why the packaging is there in the first place. I wrote this little jingle for Twitter and that’s says it all. “Toothpaste squeezes, eggs aren’t cracked, pizza delivered, headache’s better, beer anyone? Packaging a love affair you never knew you had.”

Now don’t get me wrong, I have seen some very interesting concepts in “green” product packaging some that make sense to the consumer. But I have seen a lot of junk too. Some companies that are just making some green packaging noise hoping to capitalize on some of the current media buzz. So think about your green product packaging message and how it integrates into your brand. Does it make real sense or are you just trying to spin green? Remember before you jump into the frenzy consider what your consumer wants and expects out of your product packaging. Will it truly make a difference in the eyes of your core customer?

About the Author:

JoAnn Hines is the Chief Executive Officer at J.R. Hines International, a firm providing consulting services in the packaging industry. For over 30 years, Ms. Hines has been engaged in packaging trends, forecasting, ideation/brainstorming and implementing innovative new packaging technologies.

Need insights on packaging trends that can impact your business? Get the Packaging Diva on your team. Visit PackagingUniversity.com to find out about the latest packaging innovations.