Consumers power packaging (sidebar)

Through its survey conducted on Packworld.com, Packaging World asked respondents to describe specific examples where consumer suggestions helped improve a commercial package. Among the most frequent recommendations were those that pertained to graphics changes that made it easier to understand how to use the product, changes to the number of products per package, and improvements that made packages easier to use. One such example comes from The Scotts Company, the Marysville, OH-based maker of lawn-and-garden products. The company makes “extensive use of focus groups,” according to a survey respondent from the company who preferred not to be identified. “We have it handled by an outside agency,” he says. “All they do is focus-group research. They’re objective. In almost 100% of the cases we base much of what we do as a result of focus groups.” Consumer input has led Scotts to “change package sizes, configuration of the bag from a pillow-type to a bottom-gusseted bag with a zipper for reclosability,” he adds. “We’ve changed the name of a product when people request a name that tells more about the product. We’ve changed graphics, and almost everything to do with packaging, based on focus groups.” In other instances, packagers make use of suggestions that their customers’ users offer in the form of feedback. That was the case with Natural Alternatives Intl., a San Marcos, CA-based manufacturer and packager of nutritional supplements. Thomas Riddle, the company’s director of manufacturing, explains that one of Natural Alternatives’s customers, Jenny Craig, received feedback from its consumers “who wanted the product not in a traditional bottle that’s sometimes perceived as run-of-the-mill, but in a blister pack. Consumers perceived that it delivered higher quality.” Trent Baker, a purchasing manager for Wilson Foods Co., Salt Lake City, UT, said that consumer input led to a change in a nonreclosable frozen 10-pack of burritos sold in stores in the West. “The burritos in the pack tended to stick together in the freezer case in stores.” In this instance, the company conducted testing after the product was in the market. “We brought in consumers and listened to their comments,” Baker continued. “We recorded some of what they had said, and we looked at some of the competitors’ packages. We solved the sticking problem by adding an inexpensive wrap to each burrito. No new equipment purchases were necessary because we already sold individually wrapped burritos. We’ve had some good results from the change.” Dow Chemical’s Automotive Business Unit, Auburn Hills, MI, also had good results acting on feedback from users of its adhesive dispensing systems, which are similar to caulking guns. These users include both original equipment manufacturers and aftermarket businesses that install glass windows onto vehicle frames. “The problem was that technicians who actually do the glass installations were not happy with the design of the nozzle head,” recalled John Carroll, senior market supply manager. “With the older nozzle, they weren’t able to apply a correct bead of material, so they complained to us,” he explained. “We radically changed the entire design of it, including the shape, the form, the resin used in it, had new dies made, and we have a new injection-molding supplier that manufactures these for us. These are rigid plastic, with a nozzle that screws onto the tube of adhesive.”