COMMENTARY: Packaging Bites!
Issue: Why bad packaging hurts your brand
Commentary by: David Vinjamuri
Today I suffered what might almost qualify as a repetitive-motion injury: I cut myself while trying to liberate a consumer product from its packaging. The offender is often the clamshell style of package.
This package can only be opened with sturdy scissors or - if you’re reckless - a knife
The offender today was actually a Zyliss Ice Cream Scoop which had a plastic band wound so tightly around the slender part of its handle that I briefly considered removing it with a soldering iron (which would have been safer). Instead, I used a pair of scissors which rebounded to nick my finger.
Other examples of this type of consumer-unfriendly packaging abound from CD and DVD jewel cases covered with that same clam-shell and clad in hard-to-tear plastic and sticky, sticky tape to pill bottles with shrink-wrapped plastic neck covers that defy tearing.
All of this is actually expense management at the cost of the brand. The problem is that the wrong people are in charge of elements that really affect the brand - either finance managers worried that packaging which is easy to open will invite pilferage or salespeople responding to pressure from retailers to make packaging which will be difficult to open and hard to shoplift.
But it’s a brand disaster. Why would any consumer product knowingly cause someone to bleed? It is unimaginable.
If you’re a brand manager, it is time to start examining your packaging closely. It might just be undercutting your brand message.
March 27th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Hi David, I picked you up via ToddAnd which I carry on my MADISON AVENUE blogroll. (http://advertising-age.blogspot.com) I’m adding yours to mine as well. Would you mind reciprocating? I couldn’t agree with you more about packaging…an area of packaged goods that used to be innovative during the days when my dad invented L’Eggs for Hanes Hosiery and Tic Tac’s little plastic package that got the brand 98 % ACV at 25 cents a pack versus a nickel in a Lifesavers world. Can’t stand these plastic packages whose intent is to stifle “shrink” (theft) when most shrink in Home Depots, etc. is internal and caused by bad inventory and cashier errors. I spent time at J&J and Coke as well. Let’s compare notes! Nice to meet you.
March 31st, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I totally agree with this packaging. It’s absolutely annoying. And yes, I’ve also cut myself before.
Surely someone out there is more creative than this.
*Just google-stumbled on to your blog by searching on some ad reviews I was wanting to do on my blog.
April 5th, 2008 at 11:07 am
totally agree about annoying packaging. i guess the manufacturers are thinking of the product as packaging, not the container you buy it in, anymore. just a tip - a box cutter works really well for the big plastic clamshell packages.
April 10th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Martin - I will check your blog out … sounds great.
Randy - it never ends, does it? You would think the lawsuits alone would end this awful packaging.
Sirikat - thanks for the tip on the box cutter. Somehow, though I foresee an even bigger injury with one of those
April 26th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Hi, I’ve been reading this blog for a while. I’ve really enjoyed the commentary. However, I’ve never read a post quite like this. Please allow me to provide my feedback. Unlike the many, many other posts, I feel this post comes off as a whiny rant of angry old man.
I have no idea how old the author is of course, and I agree that there are many packaging choices that are difficult to open. Having grown up in a blister-pack, child-safe world though, I learned at an early age how to use a utility knife. Now as an adult I keep one in the kitchen, and I often open blister packs with ease. For the packages like the ice cream scoop, I might use a pair of wire cutters (which I also keep in the kitchen).
A utility knife and a pair of wire cutters may seen like a bit much—further evidence that product packing is too difficult to open—but I feel it’s perfectly reasonable. It’s important to have the right tool for the job. Is a bottle of wine too hard to open if you need a corkscrew? Would you be willing to miss out on the world’s finest wines if they didn’t come with a screw top?
At least as far as the tech product industry goes, I don’t think package has much of an effect on brand. This industry is bloated with products packaged the same way. I feel price and performance reputation have a much higher impact on brand.
Thanks for letting me provide this feedback. I’d like to hear your feedback on my post about Toyota’s online campaign for the new Corolla.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:03 am
I agree, the packaging design is awful and should have been discarded many years ago. I am from Sweden and living in Bangkok and i have been to US many times. I always keep thinking about this kind of packaging, and came up with the conclusion that it is very cost efficient and its very solid when it comes to shop-lifting. Have u ever tried to steal one of theese packages…its almost impossible..inside they have a ean code with magnetic strip..so beeeeep… and since its very hard to open the package..good choice for the stores. Plastic is as we all know very cheap to produce, so the manufacturers along with the stores dont complain…
December 2nd, 2008 at 8:39 am
Yup, I hate clam-shell packaging with a vengeance too. The number of times I’ve resorted to prising it open with a knife and nearly docking myself a finger……..