Rule 1. Know your customer - Editorial - Packaging innovation in marketing - Brief Article

Food & Drug Packaging, Dec, 2001 by James W. Peters

No matter where you are involved in the package development cycle, the first rule of effective package development is: "Know your customer."

For packaging professionals in a corporate environment, the most important customer may your own marketing people. So, what floats marketing's boat, and how can packaging professionals get the marketer's attention?

We asked Bruce Poole. He's a senior food marketer with 20 years inside Kellogg and Quaker. Bruce cites four good ways to get marketing's attention:

* Describe how a packaging innovation delivers a customer benefit. To do that, you have to understand who the target is. You need to know how the consumer uses the product. You have to show how a packaging innovation benefits them. If it's an easy-open feature. If it's a modification to the package's shape. If it's an added panel on a label, describe it in terms of positive consumer impact.

* Show how packaging innovation contributes to brand or product differentiation. Bruce says, "Tell me how the package offers something unique against my competitive set. Have the packaging people tell me how we can partner to create differentiation."

* Demonstrate how packaging contributes to branding and shelf "pop" in a cluttered retail environment. Can it add shelf presence? Can it do that off the shelf--perhaps in a floor display?

* If a packaging innovation adds cost, show how it adds value. "If you can't do that, there's no need to continue the conversation," Bruce says tersely. Key value points: Increase consumer benefits. And, increase total supply chain efficiency--that gets attention when it translates into better margins or lower price points.

The packaging professional who focuses a packaging proposal on those four issues stands a good chance of getting the ear of what is probably his or her most important "customer."

James W. Peters
Vice President/Editorial Director
jpeters@stagnito.com

P.S. Bruce Poole is transitioning from marketing management into marketing strategy and brand development consulting. Contact him at 616-382-4698.