It’s that time of year when men go weak at the knees, generally act like fools and spend most of what’s in their wallets in the all-out pursuit of love. The price of flowers skyrockets, restaurant reservations become as rare as diamonds and – speaking of diamonds – jewelry ads clutter the airwaves and newspapers. It is de rigueur to purchase one or more tokens of affection for your significant other on Valentine’s Day. For many men, a safe and (somewhat) affordable choice is a bottle of perfume. Problem solved. Or is it?

The explosion of perfume brands in recent years is unprecedented, especially in the celebrity-endorsed category. The rule of thumb seems to be that you must have a signature scent to be taken seriously as a “star.” (“D-listers” need not apply.) To the perfume houses of the world it is serious business to sign the latest and greatest “It” girl or hunkomatic boy to endorse the newest smell in a bottle; Andy Warhol’s 15-minutes-of-fame prophecy seems to be alive and well in this category. It can be a dangerous strategy to link a brand with an individual whose celebrity may burn bright one day and flame out the next; however, when one of these fragrances hits the big time the rewards can be considerable for both star and perfume house.

But back to the consumer: How does a bewildered male select the right celebrity perfume brand for his special someone? More often than not, he will endeavor to navigate the cases and aisle displays of a department store perfume and cosmetics department – the poor fellow! Will his selection be Elizabeth Taylor’s classic White Diamonds, one of the first celebrity-endorsed fragrances and still one of the top-10 sellers? Or will he choose the much-promoted scent from a manufactured movie or television star? How about one from a former bad-boy rap artist or a perfectly coiffed teen singer? Purchasing perfume at a department store can trigger a dizzying sensory overload and intimidating experience at shelf. Overwhelmed, many men beat a hasty retreat to a perfume store – big mistake! There, they typically are confronted by shelves and shelves of various bottles and packages all screaming for attention while they fight their way through a crowd of giggling school girls covered in Hello Kitty glitter and lip gloss!

Two decades ago the perfume category was dominated by classics such as Chanel and brand choice was simple. Today, some perfume houses feature entire portfolios of scents dedicated to a single celebrity, and use a tiering strategy to milk the franchise for as long as the star remains relevant: The master celebrity brand is launched in high-end department stores, followed by the debut of flanker sub-brands and limited editions in mid-tier and mass-market retail stores. This is savvy marketing, as the widespread availability and affordability of these celebrity scents increases category awareness as a whole and supports brand stretch for both the celebrities and perfume houses. It’s a “good, better, best” approach to scent branding that consumers appear to understand and tolerate.

Another way that perfume houses strengthen the brand-consumer connection is by involving the celebrity in their scent’s creation, from inception through development and marketing. The celebrity’s participation in crafting their perfume and its brand proposition is what consumers see and appreciate; it also provides the authenticity consumers admire. (This interesting relationship between brand, manufacturer and consumer could provide insights for other categories.) I understand that Lady Gaga was a stickler for details in the development and launch of her scent with Coty; this is laudable and understandable, as the brand equity of both Gaga and the perfume house were on the line. Sean John Combs and J Lo seemed to have cracked the code with scents that might just outlast their singing careers. Sean John managed three years at the top spot for men’s brands, while J Lo launched Glow and generated over $80 million in first-year sales.

Unfortunately, none of this back story helps the poor sap who, at the end of the day, just wants to buy some perfume and make a positive, heartfelt impression on his beloved. My advice to fellow males is to do some homework before you make the trek to the department or perfume store. Flip through magazines or store circulars and sniff the perfume inserts. What scents do you find most appealing – sweet, citrus, or musky? Peruse the bottles on your lady’s dresser; what perfumes does she prefer and for what occasions? Then, armed with your new-found knowledge, let your nose lead you in the right direction.

I tend to have daydreams a lot when I am alone – in the shower, on a short commute, preparing for bed. It’s like my brain is begging for some “me time,” some one-on-one attention. While I spend most of the day juggling meetings and presentations, my brain has been furiously taking notes, just waiting for the perfect moment to bombard me with a million ideas, as if it were my over-achieving personal assistant. I can almost hear the dialogue: “Brandy! Brandy! What do you think about this?” or “Hey, isn’t this a cool idea!” or “What if…?”

Let me clarify: This is not about being merely distracted. As early as grade school, I would be engaged and attentive in class, yet feel like my brain was continually ten steps ahead of my body. I would find myself constantly multi-tasking; participating in a class discussion while mentally choreographing a dance routine, envisioning my next art project, and thinking about some boy, all while doodling my mermaid-inspired prom dress complete with a seashell-inspired bustier. Some may diagnose this flurry of cranial cartwheels as attention deficit disorder; however, I’ll defend it as the inner workings of a creative, right-brain package designer eager to connect with her left-brain coworkers and clients.

Bridging the great divide
The “right brain” is sympathetic to spontaneous thought, and spends much of its time solving multiple creative problems. The “left brain” is more straightforward, analytical and precise in its musings. Working in a branding and package design agency requires understanding and appreciating both left- and right-brained thinkers to attain maximum results. This can be difficult if you are a “righty,” as sometimes left-leaning thinkers can (in a righty’s estimation) overwork a creative vision by adding lengthy lists of objectives, success criteria, and consumer validation. After reading a list of “can’ts,” how do we right-brain folks stay inspired and create brilliant package design solutions that also deliver solid business results?

Here’s an example: A left-brain brand manager may be looking for a device to increase sales volume or, as we righties typically say, “delight” their consumers. The problem is that an Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation does not have the capability to harness a righty’s imagination. We need to use a much bigger net; to expand before we contract. It’s like having a 2x2 versus a 40x40 canvas on which to create a painting: If I work on a 2x2 canvas, I have to do a lot of upfront planning and formulating ideas before even picking up a brush; so much so that when I finally do begin, each brush stroke ends up becoming very rigid and expected. Working on the 40x40 canvas, though, I could be relaxed, experimental, and free to find a “happy accident” which could become the centerpiece I didn’t realize I was creating when I began.

Lost in metaphors? Lefties, bear with me. I am not advocating creative chaos. I’m talking about balancing creative exploration and project management to produce breakthrough package design that works within a client’s budget and time constraints. Here are some ways to bridge the great divide; to merge two opposing trains of thought, one linear, one swirly:

This is an excerpt that originally appeared in the November 2011 issue of Package Design Magazine. To read the full article please click here.

First published in Shelf Impact, July 1, 2010

“Write an article about trends,” the editor said. “Think about the future of package design and consumers. Look into your crystal ball.” Easier said than done. I don’t own a crystal ball, and if I had believed everything I watched on the television show “Tomorrow’s World” when I was growing up, we all would be vacationing on the moon by now!

I could take the easy way out and wax poetic on the much-dissected topic of consumer opinions, the cliché of recycling and, of course, the 600-pound gorilla in the room—sustainability. Yes, they all are important issues, but hardly groundbreaking. In fact, here’s what I see developing in these areas:

• Packaging will have to work harder than ever to compete at shelf. However, this could be a positive trend that results in package designs articulating fewer and more concise messages, not more claims and louder “screams.”
• The weekly online grocery shopper will increase his or her influence and importance as the technology behind ordering and delivery becomes more sophisticated and convenient. This will become an important factor in brands’ package design, as packaging will play a totally different role online versus in the home.
• Category language will shift as a brand’s role evolves from mere shelf competitor to that of helper, advocate, enabler, and cache demonstrator within the home.
• Being “green” will continue to drive innovation in package design. This will be evidenced by package structures that are created from vegetable materials and product containers that consumers can bury in their garden and turn into compost. The biggest and most dramatic “green” achievement, however, will be the creation of a sustainable brand model that truly resonates with consumers. This will become a marketing tipping point, as consumers thereafter will demand sustainability from brands in all sectors to offset global resource scarcities.

My advice to brand owners: Start working on your sustainability model immediately, before consumers or governments mandate it and you are forced to play catch-up at the expense of lost sales and a deteriorating brand image.

Now that we have gotten the “predictable” predictions out of the way, what else does packaging’s future hold?
First, I see a movement to smaller portion sizes and a “feel good” factor at shelf around more responsible purchasing. The warehouse giants of mass consumption and volume buying will become a thing of the past, viewed as an opulent waste of time, energy, goods, and money. Did we really need that five-gallon drum of pickles? Talk about wasteful!

Bottled water will be the first victim of this “less is more” trend. Why on earth are consumers in New York and Paris drinking water from Fiji anyway? Remember the anti-fur coat campaign; a similar backlash may be in bottled water’s future.

Food safety and its role in packaging will continue as a front-burner issue. In the wake of ongoing salmonella and e-coli outbreaks and other dietary disasters, consumers will demand more detailed information about the products we eat. Who made this, what was the process, and what will it do for me and to me?

Consumer advocacy groups will join forces with government agencies, ala the anti-tobacco model, to demand end-to-end transparency around the packaged foods production process. Large global manufacturing companies will become the newest target of boycotts and other reform efforts. Who knew that detergents, soda, cereals, canned fruits, and vegetables could be so harmful?

On the positive side, this wave of consumer awareness and activism will spawn the development of exciting and new mass-market natural food stores, and these shopping destinations no longer will be viewed as places where people wearing hemp clothes and flip-flops go to buy beans. Everyone will be there, exchanging product information, trying new brands, and widening their culinary vocabulary.

Conventional product categories will blur, allowing more brands to enter areas they traditionally had no right to be in or win in. As some dominant brands become static within their established category, they will begin to explore alternative avenues for market and revenue growth. These brands will be forced to look deeper and harder at their core brand attributes and align them to other, more tangential categories.

Of course, these forays into the new and unknown come with the usual words of caution: Expansion is always an “iffy” prospect, and efforts to leverage and grow your business should never be to the detriment of your key assets—your brand’s visual equities in the mind’s eye of the consumer versus the mind’s eye of the junior brand manager, design agency, or advertising executive hell-bent on winning the latest and greatest design award.

However, as we are talking about the future, let’s be optimistic and positive. Those brands which are able to truly understand their key equities and how best to leverage them will find that they can prosper in new, innovative, non-traditional categories. Could we see a breakfast energy drink from Duracell in the juice aisle, Gillette in the power tools section at Lowe’s, Olay sponsoring and supplying facial products to the Red Cross (no longer just hope in a jar but meaningful hope for the world), and Starbucks dispensing healthy tea along with knowledge exchanges (we used to call them libraries!)? Why not? All things are possible, even vacations on the moon.

So when and where will these branding and packaging revolutions begin? Some are already in motion, but my crystal ball reveals only a tantalizing glimpse of the others’ future. Of one thing I am sure: Consumer opinion will continue to shape the future of packaging. Like water flowing downhill, consumers will always find a way to make their wishes known. Sometimes their desire for change is demonstrated drop by drop, one purchase at a time, in a slow and gradual wearing-down process.

On other occasions, their demands hit with the force of a tsunami; a wall of water powered by the collective strength of Internet-savvy advocacy groups. It’s the ultimate sink-or-swim situation: Those companies that want to protect and grow their brands need to effectively monitor, understand, and cultivate consumer opinion. Their future depends on it.

Read more about packaging trends here!

Is package design an art, a science, or a strategic blending of the two?  When a brand has just 20 feet and five seconds to attract a shopper’s attention at shelf, companies need to develop iconic, unforgettable, instinctive package design that delights consumers and deliver sales. 

To learn how instinctive design can connect with shoppers’ key emotions and produce as much as an 80 percent conversion rate, register now for an exclusive, June 15th webcast on the topic from Shelf Impact and Interbrand. I'll be presenting as well as Leigh Bachman, Interbrand's Executive Director of Brand Strategy.
 
To register, visit Instinctive Design: Developing iconic, unforgettable design that delights and connects with consumers.

Confession
Two years ago I wrote a Design Perspective on the overuse of banners and flags in package design. Originally, banners were heraldic devices that helped to identify various groups on a battlefield. They were a simple way to cut through the haze of war so that generals on the hills above could monitor the battle’s progress; in essence, an early form of branding and identification. In the modern era, however, banners became a way for a brand to trumpet, “I am different; notice me!”

One historic heraldic device that today is widely overused in logo design is the shield. Most people are under the impression that, in battle, a shield is used only for protection. In fact, it can be a very effective offensive weapon. Over the years, the shield has famously appeared in logo designs for UPS, Harley Davidson and the Salvation Army.

Why does the shield wield so much power in American design? Road signs, sports companies, car manufacturers, beer brands, comic book heroes and food brands have all used the shield as a graphic device at one time or another. There seems to be several graphic interpretations of the same basic form, from the simple round to the more elaborate scalloped top. I would imagine that designers and clients alike – particularly in the health care and security industries – think that the shield represents security, trust and even value. But at the end of the day, what does the shield mean to the average consumer, particularly when its use is so commonplace that it has lost most of its value and meaning?

I’m not sure whether a simplified graphic interpretation of a device that is both defensive and offensive can articulate the right message for so many different industries, companies and products. Honestly, how many consumers would even know the difference between one shield form and another?  Would a Spartan shield signify something different to the consumer than a Roman shield and link certain attributes with a specific brand? Probably not. Also, isn’t a shield old-fashioned and outdated? So why then does this basic shape keep surfacing in so many industries? The next time you are out and about, count how many shield shapes you see. Once you start to recognize the shape, you will be staggered at how ubiquitous it has become – so much so that it has started to melt into the fabric of our visual society.

Frankly, I would avoid using the shield at all costs, as this tired, overused symbol has lost its value and uniqueness in all but a few brand categories.