Gary Chiappetta, President & Managing Partner

Article Published in Packaging Digest MagazineSeptember 2011 Issue

Designing with the end-in-mind reduces production bottlenecks, speeds time-to-shelf and disrupts the market in the process.

In today’s crowded markets, differentiation is increasingly important to stand out and get noticed. When a retail product has a proprietary formulation (i.e. Coke) or patented design feature like Swifter, it’s much easier to capture market share, and in some cases, create a whole new category. This form of intellectual property not only gives brands an edge in the market, it creates a barrier for me too products and in some cases with a design or utility patent or trademark.

But there are plenty of everyday retail products on the market without patents, ubiquitous products that have become commodities like toilet paper, dish soap, or even snack foods. However, manufacturers have been reluctant to invest marketing dollars in everyday items that are considered value driven commodity products (unless of course the products are well-known brands).

For smaller manufacturers margins are thin and volume drives their market. There are ways to differentiate here and raise the reservation price point (what consumers are willing to pay) and increase margins.  But to accomplish this goal, brand marketers and designers need to learn to partner with engineering and manufacturing at earlier stages of conceptual development.

There needs to be more action and less talk about working together.  If you want to make big things happen, there needs to be big change. The change may have to begin with a paradigm shift in thinking, by designers, about the value of capturing creative thinking from the production and manufacturing teams.

Recently, I participated in a large creative ideation session that included engineers and production staff. Some of the most interesting idea builds came from the “non-creative” participants. Not because their ideas were better or they had better insights. Their ideas were valued before the session even started (by just inviting them) and their ideas brought new perspective that didn’t exist in prior developments. When a new product development process moves beyond aimless design and leverages cross functional collaboration, its magic and everyone wins.

Collaboration and Co-creation from Ideation to Manufacturing
Marketing, design and manufacturing working in parallel not only promotes a healthy discovery process, but the partnership can lead to disruptive design insights that create a unique point of difference. Working together eliminates the typical stage gate process (and the project “hand-off”) and lets ideas evolve quickly, with buy-in from all stakeholders. That evolution allows the most effective ideas to emerge giving the entire team confidence and enthusiasm to push their limitations with new achievable results.

One obvious benefit of downstream collaboration is reducing costly bottlenecks in production; a critical time that is most likely already compressed and strained. Losing a week or two in timing a product launch could cost a company millions in lost sales opportunities not to mention costs associated with advertising and promoting the launch. Getting a product to market quicker also makes it more difficult for the fast followers to steal market share or big brands enough time to react. The extra time on shelf will help establish product leadership, capture a bigger market share, and increase overall sales.

Most packaging design projects face similar difficulties in regards to timing and budgets. So how can these collaborative teams create better design solutions that are more cost effective and do it in less time? By allowing teams to work in an environment that embraces iterative ideation, iterative design and iterative prototyping. Changes in technology, material specifications, manufacturing and printing have created complex challenges and diverse opportunities. You need everyone on board to bring these industry specific ideas and their experience to the table and begin a process for co-creation and the ideation sessions are perfect for that kind of thought leadership to help ideas take shape.

After artists capture initial ideas on paper, iterative design and rapid prototyping takes the subjectivity out of each concept and creates a concrete framework for feedback. The feedback should include the original ideation teams, brand and executive teams and consumers. This can be done concurrently with structural packaging design, brand packaging graphics and visual identity. Like the changing images in a Kaleidoscope, brand, color, form and function must align synergistically to be effective functionally and elicit an emotion. Sometimes, the packaging innovation itself is the catalyst for new revenue streams and differentiation.

Market Makers and Trail Blazers
Oscar Mayer is a great example of a food company that is considered a “market maker”. One of the most powerful ways to bring products to market faster is to create your own sector through product innovation or shelf disruption. Oscar Mayer’s introduction of Lunchables™ was the first food product of the time that incorporated moist and dry food packaged together and was considered revolutionary at the time. The overall concept combined with new packaging technology created an immediate barrier to entry for the competition.

Oscar Mayer was also one of the first to introduce lunchmeats and cheeses that were vacuum formed and could be merchandised in the refrigerated section of grocery stores. This innovation took consumers out of the deli counter and enabled quicker and easier access to deli products without waiting in line.  Although there have been many iterations of the same concept from many other brand manufacturers Oscar Mayer is still the recognized leader.

Other brands rely on effective design communication and unique structural packaging to capture the attention of the consumer. For example, Method was the first to create a structurally revolutionary bottle as a primary container for its hand soap line. This innovation has given birth to many fast followers and copycats, but Method will always own the equity as the first brand to leap from the ledge of standard hand soap packaging.

Whether a brand is launching a new packaging structure or a bold new design for their products, it is critical that ideation, design, pre-press production and manufacturing be a voice in the process from start to finish. Without this 360 degree development of the new product, the window for launch and inevitably a products competitive advantage get lost in a process of working in silos, stage gate processes and downstream hand-offs.

Moving Beyond Design Intent
In many cases packaging designers are creating design solutions that align with a creative strategy while maintaining brand standards and packaging architecture. A designer is tasked with solving one problem while inherently and unknowingly creating another for production. Designers cannot be expected to be IT experts just because they work on a computer, as much as they cannot be expected to be production experts just because they are designers. Working with downstream production specialists and printers can help designers work with the end in mind.

Another constraint for designers is digital output as proof of concept. Although there are many various forms of output (inkjet, thermal, laser Jet, etc), none of these technologies offers the ability to print specialty inks or specialty stocks. And as much as these print tools are great for rapid prototyping of color, their output is only an interpolation of a print environment.

How can designers envision a design alternative on foil stock using transparent inks and custom color matching? How would they even know to ask unless they are trying to mimic a look or effect that has already been produced? Iterative color imaging will help solve potential downstream problems early on in the design process and the process allows “happy accidents” to occur that can alter the design thinking. In addition, consulting with separators early on can be a great help in understanding how print order, SWAP color, and custom colors need to be addressed to meet printer specifications.

Like brand packaging designers, structural design teams also face similar and at times, more complex challenges. At the same time, structural ID teams are expected to be experienced in manufacturing and deliver beyond design intent. This is why engineering and prototyping is a structural designer’s best friend (or should at least be embraced).

Today’s rapid prototyping tools can help designers and manufacturers quickly visualize 2D concepts in a 3D form. This is an important step not only for design development, but also for manufacturers to begin to assess downstream challenges. It’s a great time to collaborate and meet the challenges of the market, the goals of the brand team, and to take market share from competitors through innovation. Prototyping should not be looked at as an end-game process for visualizing a final design, but used as an iterative tool to fail fast forward. And do it early in the process.