The packaging for the average consumer product has a lot of jobs to do. It must handle the rigors of shipping and stocking, catch the consumer s eye, quickly communicate what the product is and what it does, and allow for easy storage and usage. And with tens of thousands of new products and line extensions introduced each year, not to mention the assault of private label brands, it has to do all that in a noisy, hostile environment.

Marketers who send packaging into that fray may benefit from reading Packaging Strategy: Winning the Consumer. Edited by Mona Doyle, founder of The Consumer Research Network, a Philadelphia research firm, the book presents real-world information on packaging and packaging research from the people who design, research and write about packaging for a living.

In 13 chapters, the various contributors to the book cover pretty much everything you always wanted to know about packaging and packaging research, from just what a T-scope is and how it works to the often contradictory effects of environmental concerns on packaging choices.

Tony Adams, former vice president of marketing research and planning at Campbell Soup Company, and a director of strategic marketing research at Coca-Cola (how’s that for examples of legendary packaging?) muses on the value of color and shape in package design.

In "Packaging, Solid Waste, and Environmental Trade-Offs," Lynn Scarlett, vice president of research at the Reason Foundation, a public policy think tank in Los Angeles, and frequent writer on environmental policy issues, gives an overview of the issues surrounding "green packaging," including some interesting insights on how supposedly environmentally-friendly packaging solutions - like McDonald’s switch from polystyrene burger pods to paper and cardboard, and roundly condemned packaging like juice boxes - aren’t what they seem to be.

Craig Erickson, editor of the newsletter Shelf Presence, provides food for thought on copycat packaging in "The Cons and Cons of Copycat Packaging." Gerald Meier, vice president, packaging for Paper Machinery Corp., in Milwaukee, contributes a thoughtful piece on (among other things) how the production capabilities of packaging manufacturers influence packaging design. Lorna Opatow, president of Opatow Associates, a New York City research firm that specializes in packaging research, provides a quick look at the role of research in packaging design.

The centerpiece of the book is an exhaustive, informative chapter by Herbert Meyers of Gerstman + Meyers Inc., a brand identity and design consulting firm. In 60 pages Meyers covers all the aspects of package design, from the roles of color, copy and shape to researching and producing the final product.

Doyle closes the book with “The Consumer Side of Packaging Power,” a snapshot of where consumer perceptions of packaging are now, gleaned from the thousands of consumers who participate in Doyle’s Consumer Network panel.

The book’s strengths are its thoroughness and its readability. The writers have plenty of knowledge to impart but they address the audience as peers rather than students. No jargon or convoluted academic double-talk here; just solid, real-world information.

Packaging Strategy: Winning the Consumer ($45.00, hard-cover, 179 pages), edited by Mona Doyle, is available from Technomic Publishing Company, Inc., Order Dept., 851 New Holland Ave. Box 3535, Lancaster, Pa., 17604. Phone 800-233-9936. Fax 717-295-4538. Web site http://www.techpub.com. E-mail: marketing@techpub.com. A detailed brochure describing the book and listing its complete table of contents is available from the publisher upon request.