A technology is really mainstream when it hits USA Today, and on Black Friday no less. So apparently shopping, with your smart phone retail apps blazing, has become a reality.
With the holiday shopping season starting in earnest, and retailers holding their breath, it can now be reported that this is the first season for an app supported retail experience. It appears that over 100 retailers from Best Buy to Toys R Us have all developed mobile web sites, or phone apps, and the article reports that “mobile shopping market is small, even if the sales numbers seem impressive at first blush: $750 million. But that represents about half of 1% of online sales”.
And as I have mentioned in two previous posts this month, here and here, the mobile web site is just the beginning. There will be a whole new level of interactivity between the product, the retailer, and the rest of the consumer’s life when shopping applications like this demo from Resource Interactive become common, I suspect sooner rather than later. The paper also had a related piece on several of the existing mobile shopping sites.
There is a trend in technology packaging that might be called “The Glass House look”. Hope the architect isn’t displeased.
I live near Philip Johnson’s Glass House, and pass by it often on my training rides through New Canaan. On one such ride this weekend, I stopped and climbed to the top of the high fieldstone wall that lines Ponus Ridge Road to take a peak, and was again reminded of its simple beauty, and the jewel-like quality it gave all of the contents within the glass walls, effortlessly framing and protecting them.
It later occurred to me, as I browsed through an Apple store, that more and more of the computer accessory packaging is beginning to share the same straightforward design philosophy. There is some very simple, clean, elegant technology packaging out there these days.
It seems to be driven by two things. The first of course is Apple. Much has been written about the breathlessly elegant work being done by their in-house design group. I don’t need to add to this dialogue, it speaks for itself.
But the second is the increasingly attractive product design being done by others in the category, and the probable recognition by the package designers that the best design philosophy is the same thing that motivated Philip Johnson in the design of his house, but in reverse.
In his case he spoke about the transparent relationship you have with nature when the lines between the interior and exterior are blurred, when looking out. In the case of technology packaging it is about having nothing between the consumer and the product, when looking in.
But in both cases, the Glass House and the new Apple Mouse box, the intent is the same, a structure that minimizes itself, to maximize its own clarity and transparency. And through this simplicity a way of highlighting both what’s inside and outside the box.
Very few packages, or pieces of architecture for that matter, could do more with less.
Earlier this week I posted about the new Minute Maid package design, but I’m going to stick with the topic because there are some interesting lessons to be learned here.
Epigenetics refers to changes in appearance or activity of a gene caused by mechanisms other than the underlying DNA. Recently the orange juice business has given us examples of two widely divergent opinions on how to deal with the DNA of a brand.
For a CPG brand, the package is its DNA, containing the basic code of its visual life. The aesthetic building blocks of color, shape, materials, typography, etc. are wound into the strands of its visual heritage. Change any one, and the brand changes, often in radical ways that cannot be predicted.
But biologists have known for some time what marketers and designers, are just beginning to grasp. Their research tells them that even if two individuals have the same DNA, identical twins for instance, the environment can alter the way they look and act. Nature and nurture, right.
Savvy marketers may not have a clear understanding of exactly how the DNA of their brand evolves, but they are beginning to understand that outside influences can have substantial influence on how the genes are expressed. As a result they are more often tinkering with the external factors of advertising, web presence, promotional programs, point of sale material etc., and leaving intact the package, the basic building block of their brand. They are beginning to learn, especially for heritage brands like Minute Maid or Tropicana, with very rich and complex DNA, that it is probably better to rely on these other tools.
Tropicana chose to radically alter the basic building blocks of its brand, changing the DNA itself. Their new design contained almost none of the visual equity it had been known for, and consumers reacted, violently.
With the release this week of its new Minute Maid package design, it is clear that Coke has taken a different approach. Leaving the DNA intact. As Brian Kelley of Coke says in an Ad Age article this week,
“Importantly the Minute Maid logo is clear; it is what links the brand to its terrific heritage. We didn’t stray far from that,” Mr. Kelley said. “Unlike what our competitor did, this is all about improving and moving forward. We certainly weren’t running away from anything.”
As Tropicana learned earlier this year a good way to kill a brand is to radically rearrange its DNA, the package. As Minute Maid has now confirmed a better way to manage the direction of a brand is to leave the DNA essentially intact and use epigenetics, everything other than the package, to influence and adjust the course of the brand.
The Absolut brand has been, virtually from the start, a rare combination of unique and recognizable package, used as an advertising icon, supporting a premium at-home and on-premise visibility, and ultimately making consumers feel part of a lifestyle experience. Not bad for a simple glass bottle. (In the interests of full disclosure, Pernod Ricard is a client, but I don’t work on this brand).
Now we have a new combination of relevant and fresh package design, support of a local illustrator, crowd sourced consumer involvement, and perhaps most importantly, support for community arts programs in Vancouver.
As reported at dexigner.com, Absolut will apparently give up to $120,000 in support of the local arts community from the proceeds of its newly designed Vancouver themed bottle designed by local illustrator and graphic artist Douglas Fraser.
This is the first Canadian city the brand has chosen for its city themed bottles. The other interesting twist as part of this introduction is an arts contest, where Vancouver residents can vote on their favorite community arts proposals.
These are the words that come to mind when viewing the new Minute Maid juice packaging announced yesterday by Coke. And maybe it is no surprise that the change is minimal given the Tropicana debacle earlier this year.
The press release certainly doesn’t talk much about the cultural or aesthetic values of the brand. These are Coke’s words when describing the work.
“Based on extensive consumer research, the new visual identity was created to enhance brand preference, improve shelf stand out, drive cost efficiencies and create consistency across a world-leading family of juice brands and products.”
Should we be disappointed that it is an opportunity lost . . . don’t think so. This was after all not a student design exercise but one step in the life of a very valuable brand. It is a competent evolutionary improvement, and certainly not a flight of ego driven mania and professional incompetence. Don’t get me started with Arnell.
Duffy & Partners was apparently given this chance to update their own work, originally developed in the 1990’s. Here is a link to Joe Duffy describing his earlier effort in the Corporate Design Foundation journal.
While this may not be the kind of work that originally got Joe Duffy noticed, and his firm famously purchased by Michael Peters 20 years ago, with a headline in a Wall Street Journal Ad that read “How two guys with art degrees can do more for your business than a conference room full of MBAs”, it is a different time, revolutionary and breathtaking, no, but competent, yes!
The Packaging Design Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology is working hard to introduce a new certificate program in Sustainable Packaging Design. The idea is to intensely ground students, using 5-6 specific classes, thus allowing them to become key resources within their organizations for this increasingly complex and critical issue.
I applaud their effort, and was invited to attend an industry roundtable last week to discuss the program. It was another reminder of what a wonderful resource the FIT group is to our package design community. They now graduate about 25 students each year, and the depth of the program, as evidenced by the increasingly great quality of the graduating senior’s portfolios, continues to surprise.
The event was hosted by Marianne Klimchuck, Associate Chair, and Sandra Krasovec, Associate Professor, and was attended by a number of educators, package designers and package materials suppliers.
The event kicked off with a presentation on the sustainable packaging initiatives at Estée Lauder by John DelFausse, the company’s Chief Environmental Officer, and continued for several hours with a detailed discussion on the potential scope and content.
The curriculum is still being finalized with the hopes of getting the program started as early as Fall 2010. I am sure that Sandra, who will be spearheading the effort within the SUNY community, would be more than interested in all thoughts from the design community.
It was about 15 or 20 years after he created the Brillo soap pad box that sold yesterday at a Phillips auction in New York. We didn’t discuss it at the time.
Lost in all of the commentary and the reports of the sale yesterday is the fact that the Brillo box, used by Andy as the inspiration for his artwork, was designed in 1961 by James Harvey, at the New York design firm of Stuart and Gunn. Harvey was a commercial artist and abstract expressionist painter who studied at The Art Institute of Chicago. Sadly, he died in 1965 at the young age of 36. But imagine the thrill it must have been for him to see his work become one of the foundations of Warhol’s fame.
It is interesting to note that when this work was created in 1964, Brillo had sales of about $15 million and was losing share rapidly to S.O.S.
Wonder if Andy knew that Brillo is the Latin word for bright.
New York’s School of Visual Arts is beginning a new Masters in Professional Studies in Branding program, and I am very excited that they have asked me to be on the faculty. Couldn’t be more thrilled!
The program held an open house last Saturday where the Chair, Debbie Millman, and various other members of the faculty described in detail, to a packed house of over 100 perspective students, the details of this new effort. It is briefly described as the following,
“The Masters of Professional Studies in Branding is a one-year graduate degree program that will examine the relationship between design and strategy, and the power of design thinking as a way to combine creative skills with the problem-solving and decision-making processes of design and business.”
Sounds great right!
It is the first program of its kind in the United States and will offer students a unique exposure to a curriculum organized into five progressive segments: culture, behavior, business, commerce, and creative.
Last week I sure didn’t realize that these, and likely other applications of something I now know are called augmented reality, have gone live. But that was so last week!
My last post talked about a fascinating piece of technology being developed at MIT Media Lab called SixthSense, using technology that combines a camera, projector, cell phone and an amazing interface to the web. I suggested that these combined capabilities will radically alter the way a consumer shops, and importantly for package designers, the way we design.
I talked about a fundamental question. When a consumer has all of the product information of the web at their fingertips, in real time at the store, then what does a package really need to communicate? I think we may begin to find out rather soon.
Just last week I thought this technology was unlikely to happen quickly. But two chance encounters in the last few days exposed me to technology, available now on any iPhone, that could bring a lot of Sixthsense functionality to the store, now.
I attended an open house at SVA on Saturday for their new Masters in Branding program (more on this soon). In talking with Tom Guarriello, one of the faculty, he mentioned that the yelp app has some of this functionality now. Point your phone camera down the city street and all kinds of info about stores and restaurants begins to appear on the screen. Imagine the application of this idea as you walk through the produce department at Stop & Shop.
And today I attended an information session with the package design folks at FIT on their new sustainable packaging initiative (more on this soon too) and Laura Tufariello of Design & Source, mentioned ScanLife. Turns out this application, available now, allows access to product information from the web. The only thing the manufacturer needs to do is put the ScanLife bar code on the package. The image above shows a Scandinavian ad that has a link to product videos.
And finally I found Wikitude, a “markerless AR experience”, (which simply means no bar code needed) that the developers describe in this way,
“WIKITUDE World Browser presents the user with data about their surroundings, nearby landmarks, and other points of interest by overlaying information on the real-time camera view of a smart-phone.”
Again imagine having this kind of tool as you browse the game aisle of your local Target store, searching for that perfect board game for your 5-year-old niece.
These are wonderful times for consumers and designers alike.
Today most retail store aisles, with their quiet passive rows of products neatly lined up to the horizon, are like dusty rows of library bookshelves. There is little life, less information, and no interactivity with the products on the shelf. They just sit there, some more politely than others, waiting to be taken home.
With devices like SixthSense, designed by Pranav Mistry from the Fluid Interfaces Group at the MIT Media Lab, this is about to change. He calls SixthSense “a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.” I call it groundbreaking and could see cell phones having this functionality in a few years..
Watch this TED video!
If you feel, as I do, that the next important change in the retail environment will make it interactive, and that product packages will become an integral part of the brand experience, not just designed for the shelf but for the whole lifecycle of the product, then you will be amazed. In it Pattie Maes demonstrates the device for the first time. Its just 8 minutes or so, and make sure you stay for the last few minutes where specific retail applications are demonstrated.
I have heard a lot of hyperbole about the interactive retail environment, and discussions of how holographic packaging, or talking retail displays, or battery operated shelf inserts were going to change the world of retailing. But all of these are one-dimensional push technology spewing out information that the manufacturer or retailer think you want to hear. And certainly not tailored to your specific interests or needs.
Devices like SixthSense will be a much richer interface for the consumer at the store. You will select a package from the shelf and have the device pull all the relevant information you feel is important for an informed purchase decision from its internet browser, live, right there in the aisle.
Do you have a nut allergy, is the product organic, less expensive than a competing brand, made in the USA, any criteria you choose can be searched right then and there. SixthSense can even be preprogrammed to help you select only products that meet your criteria.
This will change the conversation completely. Every brand medium, from traditional advertising, to internet blogs, to user youtube videos will be available to you at the retail shelf.
So for package designers the task will remain how do we present brand equity when the package becomes a more integral part of the brand experience. And this task will not get easier, just because we won’t need as much stuff on the box.
The fundamental question will become, how do we communicate the essence of the brand, and perhaps nothing more, when other forms of media can communicate everything else?
In an age when consumer access to product information at the store is instantaneous, the question will not be, what do we need the box to say on shelf, and how loudly do we need to say it, but what role do we want the box to play in the entire lifecycle of the brand.
A technology is really mainstream when it hits USA Today, and on Black Friday no less. So apparently shopping, with your smart phone retail apps blazing, has become a reality.
