Josh Brooks: Is it fair to hate clamshells?

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Here at PN Towers we spend a lot of time browsing the world’s media for packaging stories and leads. You come across some interesting and curious things – today’s highlights include advice that Tiger Woods could have benefitted from “better personality packaging” (obviously not a story for us) or news that packaging designs for Microsoft Office 2010 have been “leaked” (it looks pretty similar to the last one).

But one story stood out and I’d like to get the industry’s views on it. According to a report on a Canadian news website, plastic clamshells have topped a poll of the most hated form of toy packaging. The report tells us that in the survey, which was conducted among 12,000 parents, no fewer than 72% specifically identified clamshell packs as a problem.

Many of those, it appears, would choose not to buy a toy because it was packed in a clamshell which they believed would be difficult or even dangerous to open. Indeed, the article cites the case of one father who was left cut and bleeding after grappling with a clamshell, leading his child to forever call the toy the “bad daddy blood game”.

PTPA, the children’s product testing company that conducted the survey, said that it wanted to let manufacturers know that they should be looking at their packaging to make it easier to get into.

But is all this fair? Toy packaging is a very sensitive area. Parents would be considerably less happy if they were to buy a toy that was not packed in a secure clamshell but then discovered that it was damaged – or worse, had been tampered with so that it was dangerous for children.

It is true that clamshells can be difficult to open and if you need to hack your way into a pack with scissors it’s far from ideal. But this survey smacks of the survey’s respondents wanting to have their cake and eat it. And, as we know, things are never as simple as that.

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