Speaking to PN at the easyFairs Packaging Innovations show, Blue Marlin director of insights and planning Barbra Wright said that more brands are coming to “us to see what they can do to make sure they can maintain their presence”.
Toilet paper struggle
She said that some brands are aware that “they might struggle”, so they are making sure that their products “stand out on shelf” through changes, for example, in structural design, shape or graphics.
Wright said the toilet paper market faced big challenges in trying to make their brands appeal more to the consumer.
She explained: “This is probably a category where if people are tight for money they will probably down trade to the bottom tier. If you are a brand like Andrex how do you hook people with your brand image to make them keep buying your product?”
She said that own-label brands “are starting to act more like” high value brands and changing their packs to reflect that.
Appealing to a different consumer market
Wright also said that some brands are thinking about repositioning their products to appeal to a different consumer market. She added: “We are working on a drinks brand at the moment that is a very successful brand but it is aware that it is quite polarised.
“So, they are looking at how they can extend their range and position a new part of their range to a different audience so they can broaden their footprint.”
Wright explained that quite a lot of brands are thinking about where they sit within tiering, related to pricing (cheap, middle or expensive).
She said: “Brands who are quite middle tier might look at bringing in something that is ‘better tier’ that feels premium and costs a bit more. This is because consumers are not spending a lot of money on treats, like holidays, but they are spending a little money on treats such as confectionery, pizzas to eat at home or cosmetics”.
Wright said, as a result of this, more designers are designing packs that are “accessible and really beautiful”. For example, the pack designs of Dorset Cereals, Ella’s Kitchen and Green & Blacks “are beautiful yet accessible”, she said.
She added: “It is about rewarding the consumer more through design.”
‘My economy’
Blue Marlin has recently unveiled a report on changing consumer shopping behaviour. It is called My economy.
Researchers found that four strong characters emerged from its study – archetypes that today’s shoppers inhabit. These characters include pragmatists, strugglers, protectors and opportunists.
The research found that pragmatists were “shifting from one main place to shop, to shopping more regularly and at a range of different supermarkets”. On the other hand, according to the research, strugglers are “hanging on to as much as possible from pre-recession”.
Comments from strugglers include the following: “I’ll scrimp on some things so that I can get things that really make me feel good, like a bottle of Chanel perfume that lasts for ages – the kick it gives me makes me feel good and I need a bit of feeling food.”
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‘If you are a brand like Andrex how do you hook people with your brand image to make them keep buying your product?”’
Whilst conceding that the wrapping of a 12-pack of loo rolls would be an unenviable task to be confronted with on reuse, beyond imagery tangibles can often be rewarding in the end-benefit stakes with consumers seeking extra value.
Think of packaging beyond its ‘final’ destination in the bin or landfill, and it has a potential branding role within the home for much longer.
All packaging should be designed with the final end in mind. Design for its intended purpose is often the only design effort made. A lot of plastic packaging is simply disposed of after the product has been purchased and consumers have little option but to throw it in the trash bin or a recycle bin.
Non recyclable plastics should be banned. This includes plastics that manufacturers claim are biodegradable yet when the fine print is read it only degrades under very specific conditions which the consumer has not access to. For example, compostable plastics. How does a consumer know for starters that it is a compostable plastic? Then even if they knew that, how would they dispose of it? There is no separate compostable recycling pick up, There are few to no compost facilities available in most countries. Compostable plastics while touted as green are just as big an environmental problem as conventional plastics.
On many juice bottles there are up to 3 rings on the top, one a security ring, one a lifting ring and the third a ring to hold the lifting ring on to the bottle neck. 3 rings! These can play havoc with wildlife. Take a walk along a beach and count these rings you pick up. A little design effort could eliminate all these closed rings. For example, make a T lifting handle instead of a ring lifting handle. The security ring could be replaced with a linear strip connecting to a tab on the bottle.