Dr. R. Andrew Hurley

Contributing Editor

For nearly 20 years, Honest Tea has printed inspirational messages on the underside of its bottle caps.

Create packaging with personality

As examples from Honest Tea, Snapple, Magic Hat Brewery, and Foobot show, a little packaging creativity—and the courage to use it—can go a long way toward cultivating brand loyalty.

While Chobani’s yogurt hasn’t changed, a new squeezable, resealable pouch opens up new uses for the product.

Cracking open packaging innovation

Some of the best examples of packaging innovation are those that address unarticulated consumer needs by offering greater functionality and enjoyment of existing products.

Visine’s offering focuses on two simple strategies: the specific solution, and the delivery mechanism—the drop.

Three methods for optimizing packaging for sales

When designing packaging for the time-limited and generally overwhelmed shopper, the way you communicate value has a direct impact on how shoppers behave.

Speaking with Ms. Lazenby’s Digital Media Arts class at JL Mann High School resulted in true interactions.

Your next packaging hire could be a liberal arts major

A presentation on the packaging field to a high school digital media arts class leads to an Aha! moment on how to engage a growing generation of packaging professionals.

More from Dr. R. Andrew Hurley

Dr. R. Andrew Hurley

Embrace conflict: Befriend your competition

A rising tide lifts all ships; pay close attention to your product-category neighbors, and you can leverage their packaging decisions to your own benefit.

How spam phone calls can inspire great packaging designs

A call from a telemarketer spurs insights on how package designers can leverage packaging to deliver highly customized, and thus differentiated, packaging.

Unboxing schematic

Own that unboxing experience: E-commerce packaging in the spotlight

To assuage consumers’ concerns over products purchased online, brand owners create their own ‘unboxing’ videos along with packaging that accommodates easy-to-assemble products.

Putting a gabletop carton-packaged box of cereal in the cereal aisle, the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign became a great disruptor

Disrupting the shelf – from the bottom up

Give your consumers a reason to use bottom-up processing—or go off autopilot—when viewing your products on-shelf by creating disruptive packaging design.

Jones Soda has been engaging users online since the dawn of social media.

Why you should let Ben Franklin help design your next package

Ben Franklin advised that allowing someone to do you a favor makes them more favorably disposed toward you. Find out how CPGs are using this tactic with consumers.

Pictured is the September 2016 Bark to School BarkBox.

Cognitive dissonance and the point of minimum justification

Creating cognitive dissonance through your packaging and offering a minimum point of justification can result in positive feelings for the consumer about purchasing your product.

Mika Kañive’s Frts & Ygrt concept package uses just three chunks of information, making the product easy to understand.

‘Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’

Memory may be responsible for driving more sales than you think. What do you want consumers to remember?

Tracking consumer eye movements allows you to compare what consumers think they see with what they actually see.

Packaging is the search engine optimization of retail

How do you entice the subconscious of consumers to choose your product over competitors? The underutilized answer is: packaging.

Dr. R. Andrew Hurley

Leveraging anthropomorphic aspects in packaging design

To me, packaging is a canvas, and when I look at canvases, I expect to see art—something fun, something interesting, something...disruptive.