The Secrets to Packaging Success
Three PSPs reveal the secrets to their success. While each has a different niche of the market, they have important commonalities, too.
What makes a package successful? Is it the design? Is it the printing? Is it the media? Three PSPs reveal the secrets to their success. While each has a different niche of the market, they have important commonalities, too.
Tap Packaging Solutions, an employee-owned company located in Cleveland, OH, migrated to the confectionary packaging market in 2011 after its core market, photo mounting, began migrating to electronic photo books. Tap decided to stay with its core, high-end finishing, rather than become a software-driven company. Today, it produces award-winning designs, including the Gold Award it won in the 71st Annual North American Paperboard Packaging competition earlier this year.
The winning project, an Inca Tea folding carton, exemplifies everything that makes Tap Packaging successful. Inca Teas is an environmentally conscious company offering a variety of teas based on ancient Incan recipes. The carton reflects both the product and the company culture, creating a perfect marriage of aesthetics, branding, and functionality.
The carton is made from 100% post-consumer recycled material and has a unique design that both attracts attention and strategically utilizes shelf space. It was converted using RockTenn 18-pt Kraft Uncoated Recycled Board and offset printed with soy ink. The four varieties were gang-run, and each variation was printed with opaque white ink, black ink, and one spot color. This allowed all four designs to be printed at once, while using spot color to represent each of the different tea flavors.
The Inca Tea box also features a unique custom die-cut sleeve of the Peruvian mountains and a large foil stamped logo, which helps tell the story of the all-natural tea. The outer custom die-cut sleeve serves as a closing mechanism as it slides up and then down to protect tea bags from falling out once the kraft tear-off tab has been removed.
Thanks to the unique combination of product and packaging, the tea has preferential placement in all of its outlets.
What can we learn from Tap’s success?
1. Know your core.
Don’t try to be everything to everyone. Tap’s core capabilities are drawn from its 100+ year history in the photo mount market, where it specializes in high-end embellishment, including foil stamping, embossing, and detailed handwork. Not only do clients need high-end packaging, but they are willing to pay a premium price to get it. Tap’s expansion into high-end confectionary packaging was a great match for its existing equipment and skill sets. It is now moving into other high-end markets, such as cosmetics and spirits.
Tap Packaging knows its markets inside out. This enables the company to ask the right questions and create the best possible designs from a functional and aesthetic standpoint.
2. Ask lots of questions.
Tap Packaging worked with Inca Tea for 10 months to create the award-winning design. The creative team, which is composed as much of marketers as it is designers, sought to understand the client’s target market, its unique products, and its company culture.
“It was critical to understand the brand,” noted Tony Hyland, president and CEO of Tap Packaging. “That’s why you have that Kraft look. We worked off the image of the mountains, and over time, developed the idea to have the mountains be that separate sleeve. This is also a natural product. Inca is not going after the Lipton Tea market. Our team asked questions like, ‘Where do you sell it? Who is your ideal customer?’ Then they start to present things.”
3. Hire the right people.
Tap has a team of six creative specialists, including graphic designers, structural engineers, and marketing specialists.
Because Tap is an employee-owned company, its employees have a vested interest in the company’s success. Management is not shy about asking anyone at any stage of the process for input. This ranges from the graphic design team to the employees running the finishing equipment.
“It’s not one person here,” said Hyland. “On our creative team, we have some of our brightest, youngest, most creative people. It’s a high-energy department. But for certain projects, we may get input from the press or finishing machine operator, who can give us insight into how this might manufacture better. Everyone works collaboratively.”
4. “The right stuff”
Tap Packaging runs Heidelberg presses with UV capability, three folder gluers, a windowing machine, and a Bobst rotary press for foil stamping larger format imprints. Fully half of its jobs have foil stamping and embossing, and its older, semi-automatic and manual equipment allows it to serve short-run needs with the same level of quality as longer runs.
Tap is not afraid to make major investments, either. In October 2014, it invested in a seven-color including white HP 30000 20x29-inch press (of which there are only 12 in the world). This gives it the ability to do larger size folding cartons, demographic and seasonal packaging, and test marketing.
5. Stock it!
Another unique aspect of Tap’s business is its willingness to stock a wide variety of stock sizes, with a full depth of options even for less popular SKUs. “We have a lot of packaging companies that we compete with for custom packaging,” said Hyland. “But not too many will stock 1000 SKUs, knowing they sell 80/20.”
“We Do What Others Won’t”
Another company with a specialist’s take on packaging is AlphaGraphics Seattle, which handles the label and short-run, sample, and test marketing needs of some of the larger regional and national companies in the Northwest. Much of the company’s work is prototyping and special event or custom offerings in the 100-500 piece range.
“We have built a relationship with people who know they can turn to us,” said Chuck Stempler, president, CEO, and owner. The company actively markets its capabilities to larger packaging companies and networks through suppliers and end users. “We do the difficult, time-consuming work that most packaging companies don’t want.”
AlphaGraphics produces its jobs on a variety of equipment including an iGen 150, HP Indigo 5600 and 3550, and Komori LSX 529 five-color. For large-format work, it operates a VUTEk 3250 XL Pro, an 8-color plus white hybrid press that prints on rigid substrates up to two-inch thick rolls. For thicker stock, it runs a Scitex FB 700, a 98-inch six-color press that prints substrates up to 2.5 inches thick.
The decision to get into packaging came in 2006 as a function of AlphaGraphics’ decision to build out its conventional large and grand format space. Packaging was a logical expansion to that. It now represents 10 to 12 percent of AlphaGraphics Seattle’s large and grand format volume, which is in the millions.
When it comes to structural designers, the shop built its expertise from the inside out. Three of its nine pre-press/design staff are trained packaging designers.
As a G7 printer, another differentiator is its ability to produce both very short runs and match colors across process. “All of this equipment is G7 certified,” said Stempler. “We can take a brand across multiple platforms and manage color to G7 standard. We are very unusual in that way.”
Much of the work running through the shop is high value, very targeted marketing campaigns. If clients bring their own ideas, the team helps them engineer to the best price value composition. Or they can develop concepts for them. Either way, the turnaround for fully locked up samples is typically one to two days. To meet these speed requirements, AlphaGraphics uses iCut software on the CAD cutting system, as well as GolorGate software for color management. It is also in the early stages of global comprehensive prepress Esko software automation.
Another key to its success is its ability to work with custom dimensions. “At these run lengths, customers are not limited out of the U-Line catalog,” said Stempler. “If you can the box to be 3/8” bigger than the catalog offers, you can have that. If you want multiple inserts, that can be built, too. If clients were running 500,000 boxes, they would have to engineer the job to run through a packaging line for maximize usage. Because they aren’t, they have much more flexibility.”
What is AlphaGraphics Seattle most proud of? A company culture that is focused on solving problems and meeting customer deliverable expectations. “We think of ourselves as a custom manufacturing company,” said Stempler. “Our goal is not just to do it right, but also to value engineer it for even better value than the client expected.”
With an extremely high customer return rate, the company is clearly meeting that goal.
More than a Box
While most companies are not going to produce packaging designs with the level of complexity offered by dedicated packaging specialist Structural Graphics, the company’s history of award-winning designs serves as a reminder that packaging is more than a box. Companies with truly successful packaging operations think beyond the wrapper.
For example, when Aquatic Safety introduced its iSwimband, an award-winning wearable technology dedicated to drowning prevention, Structural Graphics had to think about how to house multiple components, including a headband, wristband, sensor, and a quick start guide. Aquatic Safety also needed matching countertop displays, each holding six individual iSwimband boxes. This meant that structural integrity was a critical component of the project.
“What made us special on this project is that we were truly an end-to-end solution,” said Mary Ann Konishesky, director of business development for Structural Graphics. “We started with the paper engineering of the box and display designs, then moved into production to print, die cut and hand assemble the pieces. Next we fulfilled the swimband components into the boxes and inventoried them on our shelves. Now when a consumer places an order via the iSwimband website, we can quickly ship that product to anywhere in the world.”
Thanks to a great job by all involved, the product was picked up by “The Today Show.”
In another example of form and function, Acid Cigars also wanted to do more than house the product. It wanted to actively entice. Its goal was to get business owners to carry its line of premium cigars using the tagline "Open This and Trade Up to Profits.” To achieve that goal, Structural Graphics developed a package that presented the product in a unique way. When the cover is opened, the well that houses the cigar gently rises from the box floor. (http://www.structuralgraphics.com/work/by-form/promotional-packaging/acid-cigars-packaging)
Structural Graphics is seeing a rise in kits rather than simply boxes. Packages increasingly contain multiple elements, such as welcome letters and product literature, which must reflect identical branding. It may also be called on to provide supporting materials such as sales aids, launch kits, and influencer kits. This allows the graphic team to coordinate materials more closely than when working with multiple separate suppliers.
For example, Structural Graphics has been printing a welcome kit for the InterContinental Ambassador (loyalty) program for InterContinental Hotels & Resorts. For the past seven years, this kit has been sent to new members at three tier levels — Gold, Platinum, and Royal. Each contains a personalized welcome letter, a brochure, rewards card, and leather luggage tag.
Increasingly, packaging is becoming part of the message, as well. Take the example of a project for Whirlpool Maytag. The client wanted an engaging point of sale piece to distribute to its consumer base. These kits housed a brochure, letter, keychain, and other premium items. On each side of the box itself, there is a changing picture with the Maytag Man. Like a children’s pop-up book, when you pull the tab, the image of the Maytag Man is replaced with the corresponding machine. The box reads "He's a Machine."
“There’s flat print, there’s a box, and then there’s dimensional print and premium packaging,” concluded Konishesky. “Our products capture the target’s attention instantly. Each piece, whether packaging or mail, forces the customer to engage to unveil each little hidden secret. Why would you not want to provide your customer with something out of the ordinary?”
How Can We Do That?
So what can we learn from these companies about what makes for a successful package?
- Seek out a client base that best matches your capabilities and expertise. When your clients’ needs and your capabilities are a good fit, you can exceed expectations.
- Know the business. It’s become in vogue to add packaging to a printer’s list of services, and if all you are going to do is output files, it’s just another production job. If you’re going to be a partner to your customers’ marketing goals, it’s critical look beyond the three-dimensional surface.
- Have the right people on staff. Whether you hire structural designers or train them from the inside, knowing the ins and outs of structural design is a must.
- Ask questions — lots of them. Take the time to really get to know the client and their goals. Create packaging that reflects, not just the product, but the company culture.
- Study other packages. See what others have done. Collect samples and develop ideas. You can develop a lot of clutter, but it’s also a well of inspiration you can draw from.
Packaging can be a great side business if you’re simply outputting files. But to thrive in this market, it helps to find and know your niche.
