Packaging that helps differentiate a product from the rest of the pack is becoming increasingly critical to the purveyors of store brand items.

 An old saying insists you can’t judge a book by its cover, but the right product “cover” - that is, unique or innovative packaging - certainly can help spur a sale. And packaging that helps differentiate a product from the rest of the pack is becoming increasingly critical to the purveyors of store brand items.

That’s a huge change from private label’s traditional unobtrusive positioning, notes Linda Carroll, color insight manager for Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Ampacet Corp.

“I look to the [private label] market and say, boy have they evolved into a mindset of packaging with ego,” she says. “Now I’m seeing strength and personality coming through.”

Dan Abramowicz, president of Crown Packaging Technology, part of Philadelphia-based Crown Holdings Inc., says packaging differentiation essentially has two key dimensions: functional and visual. The functional dimension consists of any value-added feature that makes a positive difference to the consumer, while the visual element encompasses features such as shape, color or décor.

As for functional features, Abramowicz points to anything that makes a package easier to open and/or close.

Brian Ksicinski, marketing manager for Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Silgan Containers Corp., says his company’s full-panel, easy-open EZO ends have proved to be an effective functional feature.

“Consumers prefer EZO ends, and they express a willingness to pay more for products that have them,” he says.

And Crown recently launched an improvement called EasyLift, Abramowicz notes, which is a technology that gives the consumer better access to under the tab on easy-open soup and other cans.

“Although the opening forces aren’t any different, the consumer finds it’s much easier to open because they can leverage the force they apply better,” he says.

On the visual side, shaping technologies are becoming a popular means to make both national brand and store brand items stand out on the shelf. Abramowicz points to the Heineken keg-shaped beverage can, which used Crown’s proprietary shaping technology, as an example of a departure from the traditional metal cylinder.

“You’re seeing the same thing happen in other spaces like aerosol cans,” he adds. “For example, Glade’s Air Infusions brand. This is a new brand of air freshener that they’ve launched in an attractively shaped package.”

Unexpected shapes might represent the best way to differentiate a product on the shelf, Ksicinski adds.

“They act as a billboard by providing instant visual clues, and they bring out a product’s intrinsic character, quality and value,” he says. “We’ve found that shaped metal cans actually improve taste perceptions despite no change to the product formulation.”

Ksicinski notes that private label products “across the board” are doing some great things with packaging design and features. And Monrovia, Calif.-based Trader Joe’s is having success with shaped cans for store brand items, he adds.

Both Crown and Silgan Containers can help guide retailers in the shaping technology area.

Abramowicz says Crown developed an innovation process whereby the company spends a great deal of time upfront to narrow down a product manufacturer or retailer’s needs as much as possible, taking into consideration everything from equipment limitations to target price.

And Ksicinski says Silgan Containers also involves its customers early on in the development process, relying on finite element analysis as one of its technologies here.

“We work closely to find a package solution which meets all their objectives in terms of function, differentiation and performance,” he says.

Color also can make a huge visual statement. According to Carroll, color preferences are a reflection of an individual’s and a culture’s emotional mindset. Ampacet studies socioeconomic behavior around the world to gain an understanding of current and upcoming color trends.

She notes that color preferences in North America and Europe have reflected a “sublimation to the economic conditions.” The result? The runways and palettes have been overridden with neutral colors.

“About a year ago, we started to see that people had had it,” Carroll says. “So we’re now seeing an expression of counterintuitive trend. That’s why you’re starting to see a lot of colors of vibrancy coming through.”

For new upscale or premium private label items, Carroll advises going with a package that boasts a lot of color that’s “from within and coming out.” Retailers will end up with a luminosity that comes through the color.

“They have to keep in mind what color block they’re playing up against,” she explains. “So you want to go to the opposite of what the [national brands] are doing. If you have X brand that’s in a deep, rich blue, one way to absolutely differentiate yourself within that sea of blue would be with a vibrant, clean green that has some luminosity coming from within.”

And color is just as vital on the value side of private label, Carroll contends.

“It’s an extension of [the consumer’s] financial capability,” she says. “They don’t want cheap-looking.”

Going hand in hand with differentiating color are gradation effects, stripe effects or textural elements, Carroll notes.

“Anything you can do to engage all five senses must be done,” she adds.

Moreover, advanced graphics technologies really can boost color and grab the eye. Abramowicz says Crown recently created a beverage can with such high-quality graphics for Polar Beverages’ Black Jack Tea.

“Beverage cans use a completely different printing process than food cans [and] aerosol cans, which use flat sheets that we then produce into round containers,” he says. “Beverage cans start in the round, and we decorate them in the round. The quality of the graphics in the beverage can is much lower than we can get on a nice aerosol can. But this technology is closing the gap.” PLB