Filed under: FMCG innovation, Innovative stimulus, Nice Design, Nice products, new product | Tags: innovative packaging
I know it’s not fashionable in this eco-ridden-hessian-wearing-let’s-eat-organic-and-recycle-the-packaging-and-omygod-didn’t-you-bring-your-own-shopping-bag age but..I love a bit of fabulous packaging.
Don’t get me wrong I care about the planet and try to do the right thing. I have for instance a total of about 35 Coles eco shopping bags sitting in my kitchen as we speak [I keep forgetting to bring them so I buy more each time I go] which I get isn’t the point by the way, but even just walking to the car with those cheap plastic bags which are so eco terrible makes me feel less whole some how…
But I digress. The point here is that there is beautiful packaging in the world. You wouldn’t know it at Coles in Surry Hills and it sure isn’t on the shelves in my local Woolworths either but for those of you who are very much into package design, here are a few of my favourite links.
The DieLine site is without a doubt the best site I’ve seen for packaging porn. Look at the image above, who ever thought butter could look so good? Check out the sites and bookmark them for the next time you’re looking for a little eye candy or perhaps some stimulus for a preso or a workshop.
The DieLine is brilliant, full of good res packaging design images [free to search]
Global Package Gallery is another one full of product examples from around the globe [free trial then subscribe]
Another site is Under Consideration although not as good as DieLine [free to search]
Filed under: Borrow this, Innovation, Innovative stimulus, brainstorming, creativity, new product | Tags: brainstorming, Five Buck Brainstorms, Starbucks
Saw this and had to smile. This guy has been selling five buck brainstorms online – give him the brief, slip him a purple and he’ll send you back a brainstorm bonanza.
Now he’s not necessarily going to crack your number # 1 internal business problem but if it’s just a fresh perspective or mass market idea you’re after, there is something to be said for quantity over quality, at least to get the juices going.
Watch out innovation gurus, Don the Ideas Man is coming to a site near you.
He also sells “Beanstorming” [brainstorming for an hour over a coffee @ starbucks]. Check it the Idea Barista
Filed under: Innovative stimulus, Marketing | Tags: advertising to children, cigarette advertising
Saw this Kiddie Retail stand in Indonesia over the break and had a small chuckle. Presumably it sells icy poles and sweets along with the cigarettes. Nice placement. Great advertisement for Marlborough too.
Filed under: Innovative stimulus, Lifestyle trends, Nice Design | Tags: luxury trend, rough luxe
The holidays are over I can’t believe it. It seems like only yesterday I was scrambling to get everything finished for Christmas and now here I am sitting at my desk ready to start another year. I do however feel significantly more energised and excited about the year ahead than I did a few weeks ago. It’s amazing how good it feels to run away from grown up life for a while and let the engine cool down and in some cases, switch off entirely.
There’s a couple of things caught my attention which I thought I’d share with you, the first off is an interesting new hotel in London called Rough Luxe.
A couple of my mates were heading back to the UK for Christmas to spend it with family & showed me this odd little hotel they were planning to stay at in London. It’s called Rough Luxe and the idea behind it is A little luxury in the rough part of London. The hotel itself looks like it’s a mixture of old pieces, statement art & design alongside bibs & bobs that have been collected from round the traps. The idea basically is to push the idea of luxury beyond fancy pants ownables and into all things luxury – time, emotion, considered architecture & design.
They describe it on their site as :“Rough Luxe is a new way of looking at luxury as part of time and not only part of an object of consumption. Luxury is an enriching personal experience and not only an ownership or consumption of an expensive object. Therefore, the Rough Luxe definition of luxury is: time for reflection, personal encounters with people, nature, architecture and environment as well as food and social and cultural experiences linked to geographic locations.”
The hotel is part of a wider Rough Luxe Philosophy which can be applied across hotels, restaurants, retail and distribution businesses [or so they're hoping].
I’ll try & get some photos from the peeps who stayed there and post them here. In the meantime, check out the hotel here
Filed under: Innovative retail, Innovative stimulus, Marketing to women, new product | Tags: beauty, beauty industry, cosmetics, Innovation, innovative services, Marketing, women
Ladies’ beauty salons are all the same - they talk about the miracles of some facial treatment or other, offer a variety of backrubs, take care of a bit of hairy leg action & generally try & flog you a bunch of product
with anti-aging properties that don’t work but will somehow help you to retain that special glow. Yawn…
When you take a squiz at teen products on the other hand, you’d think that a 16 year-old’s life consists mainly of acne, smelling good & well…acne.
Oh and everybody’s capturing the essence of pomegranate or some made up patented ingredient but just quietly, we think the beauty industry needs to lighten up…
We’d create a beauty salon just for teenagers because when you’re 15 & you’ve just been dumped via SMS, the best revenge is to show up at the next pashfest looking like the cat’s meow.
We’d offer a range of chick only services like::
* The – I’m so over him – facial
* The – I’m gonna get me some action – make over
* The – omigod it’s my first wax – waxing menu
* The – at least my nails look good – manicure & pedicure
Is there another part of the market your business is not personally servicing? If you put yourself out on a limb & went after one new target – how would you woo them?
Filed under: Designers, FMCG innovation, Food trends & info, Innovation, Innovative marketing, Innovative promotions, Innovative stimulus, Marketing, Nice Design, Nice products, new product | Tags: FMCG, Innovation, innovative packaging, new product
While you can’t judge a book by its cover, we often judge food by its packaging. One dollars worth of spaghetti sure looks a million dollars with a bit of fancy pants wrapping doesn’t it…Never underestimate the importance of appearance when it comes to food, or anything for that matter…
Why do pet care companies always put an animal on the front of their pet food? The dog can’t read but the owner can. Why are we packaging pet food for the pet? They know what dogs look like, talk to them in their own language.
I’d take a premium supermarket pet food brand & stick it in a stylish black tin with silver labeling & discrete branding with no visual reference to animals. Risky you say? I doubt it.
And another thing… why do washing detergents all use bright colours & show water or clean clothes? We make our decisions on what detergent to buy on the perceived quality of the brand. In the absence of any
laundry powders which don’t present pictures of clouds or water gushing through logos, let’s be honest, we pick the one we think looks more sophisticated or innovative or expensive than the rest.
Why not take washing powder & stick it in a metal canister that sits proudly on the laundry shelf instead of embarrassingly in the cupboard? Or better still, cook some good looking detergent granules &
put the stuff in a stylish transparent container.
For a fresh spin on packaging, make it design-orientated not product-orientated. Just because you’re selling pasta doesn’t mean you need a fat Italian & a bunch of tomatoes on the front. Lord, this is 2008.








