Club-store sales have reached $115 billion and are increasing nearly 5% annually. The channel's growth presents opportunities to marketers who package their products to meet the special challenges of the club-store environment.
But Mike Ellgass, whose duties include packaging presentation and directing private-label brands at Sam's Club, says many brand owners could do a better job of meeting the challenges that club stores pose. Ellgass used the recent FUSE: Design & Culture/Brand Identity & Packaging conference in New York, NY, as a forum to provide six rules for harnessing packaging's full impact in club stores. He elaborated on each point further in a discussion with Shelf Impact!
* Tell your "creatives" to consider club stores as outdoor. With a bigger billboard space on a multipack, a staple of club stores, marketers tend to rely on packages that resemble print ads—they are too busy, with too many words, Ellgass says. Instead, Ellgass recommends that creative teams approach club-store package design with billboard advertising in mind. "It's that five-second rule," Ellgass says. "If you can't read it while driving, or passing, by, it's too much."
* Consider the shipper and design tray, too. Avoid letting secondary selling points detract from the main message—the product's purpose. His quick tips: no more than three "call-outs" on front panels of primary; strive for one call-out. Leverage the "real estate" on the sides of secondary packages, too. "Render a full pallet and have a discussion about how it looks," Ellgass recommends. "That's where you get the real 'ahahs' for how it looks." And make the shipper an extension of the primary package's colors. Examples to follow: Ellgass suggests that creative teams visit Sam's Club stores to view pallet displays for Del Monte (shown), Bush's Best Baked Beans, and Starbucks.
* Get your "soldiers" all marching in the same direction. Foremost, make sure your packages are properly oriented on the pallet. Costco and Sam's Club, for example, have different pallet dimensions and require that products be merchandised from different sides of a pallet. Ask store buyers for their club's pallet-merchandising specifications.
* Design pallets for multi-sided display. Two-sides-shoppable is the minimum requirement, but three sides are better, Ellgass says. Pallets that have good presentation from three sides can make for good end-aisle displays.
* Design for "Broadway theater" using size and color. Success often lies in the details, and one of them is color. Packaging often is bigger at club stores than in other store environments, but that doesn't automatically make them easier to read and understand. Lighting is comparatively dimmer at club stores, and two results are that white and other neutral colors, wash out when used as the predominant colors, and colors such as silver appear to be gray. "On our house brands, we're going bolder with the colors on our packaging," Ellgass notes. Sam's Club's Member's Mark brand has changed over to a brighter red. Its Member's Mark logo has switched swapped out gold text for white to offer more contrast from farther away against the logo's red-and-black background.
* Dress up those skirts. Here is Sam's Club's guiding rule on legibility: From 30 feet away, what can shoppers read on the skirt in three to five seconds? "Eighty percent of our shoppers look at them from a distance and give it a quick read. Bullet points are tough to read," Ellgass says.
Ellgass imparts a final bit of advice: "Spend some time in the club watching how people shop. Ask them questions as they pull products off the shelf—why did they do it?"
This article appeared in the May 29, 2008 issue of Shelf Impact!
But Mike Ellgass, whose duties include packaging presentation and directing private-label brands at Sam's Club, says many brand owners could do a better job of meeting the challenges that club stores pose. Ellgass used the recent FUSE: Design & Culture/Brand Identity & Packaging conference in New York, NY, as a forum to provide six rules for harnessing packaging's full impact in club stores. He elaborated on each point further in a discussion with Shelf Impact!
* Tell your "creatives" to consider club stores as outdoor. With a bigger billboard space on a multipack, a staple of club stores, marketers tend to rely on packages that resemble print ads—they are too busy, with too many words, Ellgass says. Instead, Ellgass recommends that creative teams approach club-store package design with billboard advertising in mind. "It's that five-second rule," Ellgass says. "If you can't read it while driving, or passing, by, it's too much."
* Consider the shipper and design tray, too. Avoid letting secondary selling points detract from the main message—the product's purpose. His quick tips: no more than three "call-outs" on front panels of primary; strive for one call-out. Leverage the "real estate" on the sides of secondary packages, too. "Render a full pallet and have a discussion about how it looks," Ellgass recommends. "That's where you get the real 'ahahs' for how it looks." And make the shipper an extension of the primary package's colors. Examples to follow: Ellgass suggests that creative teams visit Sam's Club stores to view pallet displays for Del Monte (shown), Bush's Best Baked Beans, and Starbucks.
* Get your "soldiers" all marching in the same direction. Foremost, make sure your packages are properly oriented on the pallet. Costco and Sam's Club, for example, have different pallet dimensions and require that products be merchandised from different sides of a pallet. Ask store buyers for their club's pallet-merchandising specifications.
* Design pallets for multi-sided display. Two-sides-shoppable is the minimum requirement, but three sides are better, Ellgass says. Pallets that have good presentation from three sides can make for good end-aisle displays.
* Design for "Broadway theater" using size and color. Success often lies in the details, and one of them is color. Packaging often is bigger at club stores than in other store environments, but that doesn't automatically make them easier to read and understand. Lighting is comparatively dimmer at club stores, and two results are that white and other neutral colors, wash out when used as the predominant colors, and colors such as silver appear to be gray. "On our house brands, we're going bolder with the colors on our packaging," Ellgass notes. Sam's Club's Member's Mark brand has changed over to a brighter red. Its Member's Mark logo has switched swapped out gold text for white to offer more contrast from farther away against the logo's red-and-black background.
* Dress up those skirts. Here is Sam's Club's guiding rule on legibility: From 30 feet away, what can shoppers read on the skirt in three to five seconds? "Eighty percent of our shoppers look at them from a distance and give it a quick read. Bullet points are tough to read," Ellgass says.
Ellgass imparts a final bit of advice: "Spend some time in the club watching how people shop. Ask them questions as they pull products off the shelf—why did they do it?"
This article appeared in the May 29, 2008 issue of Shelf Impact!
