Heinz_s
Heinz_s
Heinz_s
Heinz_s
Heinz_s

Packaging Performs in the Marketing Mix

Aug. 6, 2010
Promotional campaigns use packaging to deepen the consumer/brand relationship – even on the web.

For as long as there have been food brands, there have been promotional tie-ins on food packaging — think on-pack coupons, mail-in offers and instant-winner sweepstakes. Now, with the growing significance of electronic media, packaging's role in the promotional mix is expanding to leverage that technology.

"The package has to convey what this product is about and even a little bit of the expectation of the experience of the [product], so it's critical that the brands constantly look to use packaging in new and unique marketing ways," says Tom Egan, vice president of industry services at the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, Arlington, Va.

Even promotions that have been in existence for many years, like Campbell Soup's Labels for Education (LFE) program, are finding ways to play in the digital age.

The fundamentals of LFE remain unchanged: Consumers mail in UPC codes from specially marked packages to earn points that can be redeemed for educational materials, equipment and supplies for the school of their choice. Now, to draw on the power of the Internet, the LFE stamp on labels of participating products includes the program's web address (www.labelsforeducation.com). At the web site, consumers can become LFE coordinators, create and manage online accounts for "banked" points, identify bonus offers, redeem points and more.

Brands participating in the LFE program include Campbell's condensed and Chunky soups, SpaghettiO's, V8, Prego, Pepperidge Farm, Wolfgang Puck and Pop Secret.

As one of the newest brands in the program, Pop Secret is using special package graphics to call out its participation. The redesigned Pop Secret carton carries the LFE stamp on the top panel and the stamp plus UPC code on the bottom panel.

In addition, graphics for a promotional Pop Secret package feature an animated figure carrying a stop sign with the LFE logo and the message: "Clip and earn free stuff for your school." The carton's back panel also carries a message about the program. This promotional package, timed for back-to-school sales, will be in the marketplace from July through September 2010. It will be used for three-count and six-count Pop Secret, the brand's top sellers.

McCormick Puts the Bonus on the Package

For McCormick Canada Inc., London, Ontario, a new label structure has been the key to consumer engagement. Used on bottles of McCormick Canada's Club House spices and One Step Seasoning Blends, the innovative three-panel labels are printed with six recipes that feature the spice or blend inside the bottle.

To accommodate the recipes, as well as brand and company identification, brand graphics, nutrition facts and the ingredients list, the label needed to provide more space for printing than a conventional wrap-around label.

The new label does so by incorporating a top panel that can be peeled back from the base label, which is applied to the bottle. The base label and the inside top panel are printed with the recipes.

A spine keeps the two panels together on one end, ensuring that the top panel, which is printed with all the brand and product information, doesn't get separated from the package after the consumer peels it back. To keep the package looking good throughout the product's life cycle, the top panel reseals to the base label when returned to its original position. Because the products are distributed to the Canadian market, all label text is printed in both English and French.

All Stick Label Ltd., a converter based in Vaughan, Ontario, created the labels using biaxially oriented polypropylene film supplied by the Fasson Roll North America div., Mentor, Ohio, of Avery Dennison.

For food processors, "The beauty of this kind of construction — a label on a label — is that you don't need to add any secondary application equipment in the plant," says Karen Blumel, director of marketing at All Stick Label. "There's really not a lot of investment required on the manufacturing side."

From a sales standpoint, the new label is doing its job. Since its relaunch in 2008, aside from experiencing excellent sales growth, Club House One Step has increased its household penetration, had more repeat buyers and decreased the number of lapsed days between purchases.

The project exemplifies how a food processor can "take a package from a simple concept to something that is very interactive and use it to drive revenue," says Charlie MacLean, president and CEO of All Stick Label.

LFE was the first manufacturer-sponsored shopper rewards program, according to John Faulkner, director of brand communication, at Campbell Soup Co., Camden, N.J. The program "has been part of American family life since 1973. It is very much in the culture, and it's inexorably linked to Campbell's," he says. "We look at it as a program that says ‘thank you' to our consumers."

The household penetration metrics for LFE underscore the program's effectiveness in building brand loyalty. Between 30 percent and 40 percent of households participate in the program at some point during the year, according to Campbell's data.

Campbell Soup is taking advantage of supermarket scanning technology to bring LFE further into the digital age. In a pilot program with two U.S. supermarket chains, the company is trialing electronic redemption for labels. When the cashier scans the label at the point of purchase, the consumer's designated school is automatically credited with the correct amount of LFE points.

The up-side for consumers is "you don't have to go to the hassle of peeling the label off the can" and mailing it in, Faulkner says.

Homegrown graphics
H.J. Heinz Co., Pittsburgh, uses the Internet to foster community and facilitate voting in its annual Heinz Ketchup Creativity Contest. The contest, which began in 2006, gives students in kindergarten through high school the chance to design artwork for Heinz single-serving ketchup packets.

Jordan De La Rosa, a third-grader, was the 2010 contest's grand prize winner. He and the other 11 winners will have their designs featured on 20 million Heinz ketchup packets during the 2010-11 school year. This year, for the first time, the grand prize winner's artwork also will appear on some 2.5 million bottles of Heinz ketchup.

De La Rosa received $5,700 plus a school visit from contest judge and pop artist Burton Morris. The other 11 winners each received $1,000, and all 12 schools will receive $1,000 for art supplies plus a voucher for $1,000 of Heinz ketchup.

At the contest's web site (www.ketchupcreativity.com), teachers could download grade-specific lesson plans centered on food and nutrition as well as a Contest Kit with contest entry forms, package templates and Heinz Ketchup logos. Teachers also could upload student artwork to the site.

The contest's web site houses a gallery of previous winning designs and "Sharing Tools," such as electronic postcards, computer wallpapers and a screensaver with contest imagery. Public voting to choose the 12 winners for 2010 took place on the site, as in years past.

The immediate marketing benefits of the Heinz and Campbell Soup promotions are obvious. But their strategies also offer advantages for the long term. Because these programs focus on young people, the companies are essentially grooming tomorrow's brand loyalists.

A new Dew
Mountain Dew, Purchase, N.Y., a PepsiCo brand, yoked the power of social media to drive the DEWmocracy 2 promotional campaign. Launched last year, the campaign used Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and 12seconds.tv to engage the creativity of Mountain Dew fans in developing new flavors and package graphics.

PepsiCo is turning over most of the decision-making for a new flavor -- and package graphics -- of Mountain Dew to consumers. On-package graphics send people to the web site to vote, and the brand also is using Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and 12seconds.tv in the DEWmocracy 2 campaign.

Mountain Dew drinkers' enthusiasm for the product, together with the brand's emphasis on creativity and self expression, made social media a natural choice for the collaborative DEWmocracy 2 campaign. The 12-month, seven-stage campaign will culminate with the launch of a new, permanent addition to the Mountain Dew line-up this October.

"Our fans are incredibly passionate about Mountain Dew," says Angie Gentile, assistant brand manager for Mountain Dew. "Of course they love the product, but it's more than that to them. It's a lifestyle. They live, breathe, sleep Dew every day. To them, it says something about who they are."

Because the fans care so much, "They actually want a say in what the brand does," Gentile adds. "DEWmocracy gave them that opportunity in a real way." The brand used social media to identify and reach out to its brand fanatics, starting a conversation that ended up in DEW Labs on Facebook. DEW Labs consists of more than 4,000 of the brand's most hard-core fans.

In addition to helping Mountain Dew develop flavor profiles and choose product names, colors and descriptors, DEW Labs collaborated with the brand owner on package graphics.

Note to Mobile Marketing

Advancements in cell phone technology are creating new on-pack promotional opportunities. Consumers can download mobile marketing software to a cell phone or personal digital assistant (PDA), then in the grocery store point the mobile device at a 2D code on a package to receive promotional rewards or product information.

"Not only can you collect information, but the manufacturer can send a coupon to your PDA and you can bring that coupon up to the point of purchase and actually scan it," says Tom Egan, vice president of industry services, Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute, Arlington, Va.

Springer Mountain Farms, Mt. Airy, Ga., uses mobile marketing technology to promote its all-natural, humanely raised chicken products.

The company's packaging incorporates a 2D code that consumers can scan to obtain proof of purchase and which can be redeemed for mobile rewards. These include music, video and ringtone downloads plus product rebates that can be awarded directly to the consumer or transmitted to the National Breast Cancer Foundation as a cash donation.

Consumers also can scan the 2D codes on Springer Mountain Farms labels to access an online recipe book while they are shopping, a valuable service for time-pressured cooks.

Using Facebook, the brand put out a call for package designs for the three finalist flavors. Consumers voted for their favorite package graphics, winnowing the 357 submissions to 10 designs. From there, DEW Labs members narrowed the selection to a single package design for each of the three flavors. The top 10 designers each received an Apple MacBook Pro, and the top three also received a prize of $10,000.

The three winning designers worked closely with the Mountain Dew brand team for two to three months to finesse the package designs. "We truly brought them into the process," Gentile recalls. In essence, "they were on the brand team during that time. We didn't tell them anything different than what we were telling each other here at PepsiCo headquarters."

Within the promotional mix, "There is nothing quite as impactful as the actual packaging and the package design," Gentile adds, noting that the package-design competition "was one of the most exciting stages of our campaign. People got passionate about it because they knew how important it was."

Using an online process similar to that of the design contest, the brand recruited television ads for the three top flavors. In a two-step vote, consumers and DEW Labs members chose the winning ads, which ran nationally.

The three finalist products hit store shelves in April, and consumers voted for Mountain Dew White Out as the winning flavor. At the time of this writing, the brand's online community is developing a launch plan for White Out.

DEWmocracy 2 has yielded ongoing benefits for Mountain Dew, drawing an enormous number of fans into conversation with the brand. "It's been a crazy ride on Facebook," Gentile says. Between July 2009, when the campaign started, and July 2010, the number of fans on Mountain Dew's Facebook page grew from fewer than 200,000 to 970,000—without promotional spending on the site.

Some observers have wondered if it was risky to bring consumers so far into the product and package development process, but Gentile believes it was not. "You can argue that [our fans] know the brand as well as we do," she says. "We knew we were doing the right thing."

Sponsored Recommendations

Revolutionizing Healthcare: The Impact of Digitalization in Biopharma Innovation

Biopharma enables an entirely new level of innovation that’s simply not possible in conventional drug development. It’s an approach that can fundamentally change the way healthcare...

Navigating the Automotive Industry's Electric Future

The automotive industry is at a turning point. Bloomberg estimates that by 2040, 54% of new vehicle sales will be electric. And by 2030, we’re looking at 100% of passenger vehicles...

Unified Process Control Brings Operational Clarity

Inland Empire Utilities Agency replaces its SCADA enterprise system with the PlantPAx Distributed Control System and reduces complexity for operators

PlantPAx DCS Improves Operational Reliability

KC Water calls on R.E. Pedrotti to replace obsolete wastewater SCADA solution with a unified Modern Distributed Control System (DCS).