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Coca-Cola gets it, how about you?

Among the more noteworthy trends in packaged goods manufacturing over the past few years has been the push to give packaging a seat at the table.

It’s largely a matter of moving away from a business view that sees packaging as a necessary evil and toward a realization that packaging is an essential arrow in the quiver when it comes to battling for business excellence.

If anyone needs a reminder of the accuracy of this β€œnew” view, be sure to read marketing and design editor Jim George’s page 32 story on private-label packaging. As Jim astutely points out, the nation’s leading retailers are implementing sophisticated package design principles to increase market share for their own-brand product lines. Where once retailers had a β€œshare of wallet mentality,” they’ve now evolved to a β€œshare of mind” scenario, and β€œshare of lifestyle” is on the horizon. There’s a lot at stake, too, when you consider that shoppers now spend about $17 of every $100 on private-label products. Packaging is driving it all.

Further evidence of packaging’s essential role arrived the other day in my Sunday paper, which contained a full-page ad from Coca-Cola. The Atlanta-based beverage giant noted that because Americans are realizing the importance of living a healthy and active lifestyle, Coca-Cola is taking steps to help people achieve their lifestyle goals. The ad then proceeded to identify three specific steps Coke is taking, and two of the threeβ€”making information accessible and offering portion-control containersβ€”are strategies that rest squarely on packaging. β€œOur packaging can be a powerful tool for information,” the ad goes on to say. There seems little doubt that the folks in Atlanta have given packaging a seat at the table.

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