Evaluating the silent salesman

Editor’s note: Norman B. Leferman is president of Leferman Associates Inc., a Stamford, Conn., research firm.

Packaging has been personified in a number of ways: “Your package is your silent salesman who never sleeps.” “Your package is your on-shelf ambassador.” “Your package is your ever-present face to the public, particularly in the absence of advertising.”

Minus the rhetoric, the average package is typically in view for several years - far longer than most ad campaigns. Thus, now more than ever, the creation and evaluation of package alternatives deserves at least as much objective consideration and scrutiny as advertising.

Over the past few years, marketing executives have been increasingly challenged to deliver good results for their brands. The impact and effectiveness of advertising, always important, has been fractionated by a proliferation of new media. The current recessionary economy has added pressures to the bottom line, stimulating budget cuts. In fact, many companies, particularly those marketing consumer durables, have launched or supported new products with little or no consumer advertising - relying upon shelf presence, in-store displays and/or other collateral materials.

What has remained a constant is the need for communicative packaging - packaging that attracts attention in a cluttered, competitive environment, delivers a meaningful message and promotes appropriate imagery. And, beyond positioning a brand vis-Ă -vis competition, packaging is called upon to differentiate alternative products within a brand line.

For brands that are consistently and actively advertised, it used to be sufficient for a package to reinforce the advertising message and to simply be visible. That premise, of course, was predicated on the notion that the package was visible during the advertising.

Today, perhaps more than ever before, packaging may be forced to serve as the entire communications program for a brand. In fact, for some smaller brands, packaging may be the entire marketing program - the only means for a product to compete with advertised and promoted brands.

Yet, and despite the increased reliance that some companies have knowingly placed on their packaging, many companies are still conducting little or no research on their packages. Some, at best, conduct a couple of focus groups after new packaging has been created to make sure that the proposed packaging is acceptable or to serve as a disaster check.

And, more often than not, the research that is conducted is limited to a study of front-panel graphic elements (e.g., labels) with little or no regard for structures and materials. Without question, though, the shape, structure and materials used for a package can contribute to communications as much or more than the label design.

Stories abound about how the then-unique shape of the Absolut bottle contributed to the successful launch of that brand and its premium positioning. In fact, the Absolut bottle was the dominant factor in that brand’s advertising for many years. Great care was taken as Bertolli decided to switch from glass to plastic bottles for its premium-priced olive oils to ensure that consumers would not question whether the quality of the oil might have been sacrificed and, as a result, whether the switch to plastic would harm the image of the brand. Conair and others recognized long ago the need for die-cut windows in their boxes to allow consumers an opportunity to see/touch the appliances contained within.

Same degree of planning

We believe that the same degree of planning and consideration should go into the development of packaging as that traditionally devoted to advertising research, with heavy emphasis on pre-design research.

Before anyone devotes much creative time to designing a package, care should be taken to understand how consumers shop the category and use packaging in their decision process. Importantly, even though some of the information categories might be similar, one should not rely on advertising message research to drive package design.

Pre-design research for packaging should identify and assess:

How people shop the category. What do they look for first - a particular brand, a particular attribute/benefit, a size, a price point, etc.? What is their second order of priority? This should not only influence the relative size and placement of packaging elements but also impact the development of merchandising systems (e.g., how an entire category should be displayed and differentiated).

Key attributes/benefits that impact on product selection. What is the relative importance placed on taste, texture, durability, ease of use, safety, number of components in the package and, in turn, which characteristics are deserving of front-panel recognition? Moreover, beyond simply knowing the right words and phrases, it is important for packaging research to identify the colors, textures and icons that may be used to communicate those characteristics without words that can clutter the front panel.

How current and competitive packaging are regarded. Apart from the basics of knowing brand image and acceptability, it is incumbent upon package researchers to identify and fully comprehend current equity values. What current packaging elements (color, logo, typography, structure, etc.) must be retained to maintain communications with the current customer franchise? What elements should be modified/changed entirely to stimulate new/renewed interest among former users and/or non-triers?

Costly change

The need for studying equity values cannot be overstated. The recent decision of Tropicana to bring back its former package graphics after a reportedly costly change for its entire product line emphasizes the need to maintain key elements or risk the ire of current customers. This is no different than changing the formula for a product (e.g., Coca-Cola) without having consulted loyal customers.

Sometimes, though, the need for preserving specific package elements is discovered in a more subtle fashion than in the answer to a direct research question. For example, despite the fact that some aspects of its research had suggested that the owl icon on its package was a meaningless and redundant communicator, when it was time to update packaging for the Wise line of potato chips, management decided to keep the owl on its packages, albeit in a smaller form, because it gave loyal customers confidence that the product was not being changed. Management of Macco adhesives decided to maintain a cowgirl icon on packaging for its Liquid Nails line of adhesives after learning that that single element made it easy for some contractors to send their less well-educated (and/or non-native-English-speaking) laborers into a store to pick up additional tubes of product. All they had to do was find the product with the cute girl on the tube.

Guide and shape

Once the creative process has begun, follow-up phases of research are valuable to help guide and shape development and, importantly, to validate that the proposed packaging actually can fulfill objectives, including: intermediate phase(s) of research to examine response to proposed alternatives and/or package elements and to suggest refinements and; post-design research to diagnose response to final candidates, pick a “winner” and offer suggestions for optimizing that selection.

In general, a combination of qualitative and quantitative modalities are employed to study these issues. Since objectives, target audiences and competitive environments can vary greatly, there is no one cookie-cutter approach that should be followed. Depending upon the category and our objectives, we have used individual depth interviews, triads or full focus groups for pre-design research. And, in some cases, we have used the Internet for quantification.

The first priority, though, for choosing a methodology is to ensure that candidates and competitors are assessed in a cluttered environment - simulating, as much as possible, what consumers would see and feel in a typical shopping venue. To the extent that it is very complicated and/or costly to prepare enough test packages to fill shelves in a working store and wait for real consumers to shop the category, we tend to rely on simulations - often using life-sized photographic representations in a research facility to which target market consumers have been pre-recruited. In general, time-controlled stimuli (e.g., slides shown at a fraction of a second) afford an effective means of measuring impact while follow-up forced exposures let you intensively assess communication and image values.

In our view, Web-based studies are not recommended for many phases of packaging research. Most home computer screens are not nearly large enough for a consumer to see, read and evaluate alternative packages in a competitive display. While an online study may be perfectly acceptable for measuring the communication values of a single alternative on a forced-exposure basis, it does not allow the assessment of clutter effects. Research via the Internet also does not provide a means for examining consumer response to tactile characteristics (e.g., materials/textures) of a package beyond its shape.

Here are several sets of questions that marketing executives should ask about their current or future packaging. All can be addressed in reasonably cost-efficient research modalities.

When potential purchasers are shopping the category, do they see you? What brand or brands are most visible?

In the blink of an eye, what can they learn about your product? What do they sense about your brand?

Once drawn to look at your package, what are the main attributes/benefits expected from your product? Does the package communicate the intended positioning?

Is the package easy to read? Is it too cluttered? Does it clearly convey the contents/components that are included?

Is the principal display panel compelling enough to encourage consumers to pick up the package? Will they be motivated to read other panels to find other information that is important to them?

Does the principal display panel differentiate your product from those of competitors? Are the perceived differences important, compelling and believable?

Does the packaging make it easy for shoppers to differentiate among your own alternatives (e.g., sizes, flavors, power ratings, features)? Is it easy for consumers to see that you, in fact, offer alternatives?

What image does the packaging foster about your brand and/or the types of people who might use it? Does the package imply that this product is “for people like me”?

Do the physical package structure and materials provide a sufficient view of the product? Will shoppers want/need to open the package in the store to get a better look at the product?

Catch attention

Take a step back. Assume that no one knows your product, that the shopper is just entering the category and has never seen (and may never see) any advertising for your product. Can your package catch a shopper’s attention and interrupt the planned behavior of someone who was going to buy their regular brand? Will your package sell itself off the shelf or will it sit there collecting dust? Regardless of your expenditures for advertising or PR, researching your package will be a wise investment.