Digg It
#1 in Business Subscribe Email Print

You are here: Home > Business > Business > Getting the Most out of Your Packaging

Tags

  • packaged
  • decided
  • device
  • combination products
  • household cleaning

  • Links

  • Upgrade Your Bird Identification Skills by Learning Mnemonics
  • Why The 'S' Word Is Your Key To Seducing Women
  • Stress And Obesity - The Dangers Of Eating For Comfort
  • Digg It - Getting the Most out of Your Packaging

    Most of you probably didn't start your business and immediately think about packaging. You focused all your energy on your product, trying different formulas to make it better. Then once you were happy with your end product, you had to concern yourself with how to make it in larger quantit
    According to USFDA, a combination product is one composed of any combination of a drug and device; biological product and device; drug and biological product
    ies. Then suddenly you realized you needed some kind of packaging for your products. If this sounds like you, you are not alone. Packaging is one of the biggest challenges for anyone selling retail products.

    Let's start with a couple of packaging success stories. Sometimes you can learn a
    ; or drug, device, and biological product and fixed dose combination would include two or more combinations of drug.

    Examples of combination products may in
    lot by looking outside your own industry, so my first success story comes from the wine industry. The wine industry is large with tens of thousands of companies competing for our attention with hundreds of thousands of products. It is very difficult for a newcomer to make a successful bus
    lude drug-coated devices, drugs packaged with delivery devices in medical kits, and drugs and devices packaged separately but intended to be used together.

    iness, let alone become the number one wine brand. A few years ago most people would have thought it impossible.

    Well I am here to tell you that the #1 wine brand in this country did not exist here just six short years ago. I am talking about Yellow Tail wines from Australia, and they hav
    here is enormous increase in the number of combination products entering the market in the recent years. Combination products have proven advantages but fixe
    e turned the wine industry on its head. Yellow Tail Shiraz is the number one selling red wine in America, Yellow Tail Chardonnay is the number two chardonnay, and many of its other varieties are in the top five in their category. How is this phenomenal success possible from a brand that di
    d dose combinations are still in the process of convincing regulatory authority on their advantages over the single ingredient formulations.

    Combination pro
    d not exist in this country just six years ago?

    Well first, you need a good product at a reasonable price, that almost goes without saying. Most Yellow Tail wines retail for less than $8 and they are quality wines that appeal to a broad range of consumers. But to initially cut through the
    ucts have become life saving products for the pharmaceutical companies who doesn’t have many innovative molecules in their product pipeline and have been inc
    clutter at the liquor store they needed great packaging. All of their wines carry the same base label – an aboriginal style drawing of a brightly colored kangaroo on a black background. There are also different brightly colored labels on the bottle depending on the variety of wine. But th
    easingly used in the product life cycle management. Even the companies having product patents are trying to extend their product life cycle through the combi
    e labeling is consistent across all their product lines and all of Yellow Tail packaging carries this same striking picture of the kangaroo – even their delivery trucks. Next time you are in the liquor store just casually walk down the aisles and you will see that their packaging really ha
    nation products and maximize the revenues. But the companies involved in this practice are overlooking that they are burdening the patients both economically
    s a strong visual impact.

    There is a similar success story, although perhaps not quite as dramatic, in the soap making industry. Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan were a couple of twenty-something entrepreneurs with little experience when they decided to launch a household cleaning products compan
    and physically. They need to rightly judge the benefits of the combination products and they have to even look at the risks involved when combining the produ
    y back in 2000. They wanted to create cleaning products that were non-toxic and used natural ingredients, but they knew it would be far more expensive to do that. So they decided they were going to create an expensive premium brand in the cleaning products category. They called their compa
    ts. Some of the combination products were well accepted by physicians while others suffered. Companies involved in development of combination products are fi
    y Method Products and they decided from the very outset that package design was going to be an integral part of their business plan.

    They looked at all the household cleaning product currently available and decided that the packaging of these products, while functional, was boring and uni
    ding difficulty in defining their combination products and facing various challenges from selecting a combination to marketing it.

    Following aspects would a
    form. In the supermarket there was row upon row of these products with identically shaped bottles differentiated only by their labels. What they wanted to do was create packaging that you didn't need to hide in the cupboard; that you could happily display in your kitchen or bathroom like a
    dd to the challenges in developing combination products:

    Which markets to tap where the combination products can do fairly well?
    Which combination prod
    home accessory. The packaging for every one of their more than 100 products has been designed to be beautiful as well as functional.

    Method Products has been successful because they focused on the packaging as much or even more than the actual product. Their designs have won many awards,
    cts are meaningful and rational?
    Which therapeutic categories to select?
    Which Combinations can address unmet needs of the patients?
    Do combin
    and they have been featured in national magazines such as TIME, Family Circle, Redbook and Reader's Digest (and that is just a partial list from this year!). They have grown from zero to over $40 million in sales in just six years. If you are serious about getting your products into retai
    tions increase the patient compliance?
    What would be the developing cost?
    How to tackle the risks encountered during combination product developmen
    l stores I urge you walk into a Target or Costco and look at the range of Method Products.

    So what can we learn from these two highly successful retail companies? I see five common elements that have helped make these companies successful that anyone can incorporate into their packaging:
    t?

    As combination products don't fit into the traditional categories of drugs, medical devices, or biological products, the USFDA is in the process of devel

    1. Focus on your packaging – spend as much time and money on it as you can afford

    2. Keep your look and feel of your packaging consistent across all your product lines

    3. Just a color change is often enough to distinguish between flavors within the same product line

    4. Simple will usua
    ping new procedures for reviewing their safety, efficacy and quality.

    Professional from academic institutions, pharmaceutical industries, health care indust
    lly work better than a complex and busy design

    5. Look at what your competition is doing and be different

    Whether you like it or not people are going to judge your product by its packaging. If you are currently printing your own labels on your inkjet printer, there is nothing wrong with
    y and representatives from various regulatory agencies are working out to design the regulatory requirements for manufacture and sale of combination products
    that, but you will find it difficult to compete in a retail store. If you want to go to the next level, unless you have a talent for package design, you will need to invest in the services of a professional. A good starting point is often moving from do-it-yourself labels to a professional
    .

    As there is an increasing trend of the combination products companies manufacturing such products should be able to tackle the problems involved in the de
    ly printed label, this alone can transform the look of your products.

    I am sure you put your heart and soul into the creation of your products. Your customers love it and you are probably very proud of what you have created. But I encourage you to put some of that energy into your packagi
    elopment. They need to be wiser in analyzing the market trends and the regulatory requirements.

    Companies that provide selfless information through particip
    ng design. Get the most out of your packaging by making it a priority in your business. If your packaging stays as an afterthought, a necessary evil, then the success of your product will never reach its full potential. Your products certainly deserve the very best packaging you can afford


    tion in industry events and feedback to regulatory authorities would be able to face the challenges and will be successful in developing combination products

    HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
    <a href="http://www.diggit.org.ua/article/1228/diggit-Getting-the-Most-out-of-Your-Packaging.html">Getting the Most out of Your Packaging</a>

    BB link (for phorums):
    [url=http://www.diggit.org.ua/article/1228/diggit-Getting-the-Most-out-of-Your-Packaging.html]Getting the Most out of Your Packaging[/url]

    Related Articles:

    Eliminating Profit Robbing Telemarketing Calls to Your Business

    How To Write Better Ad-Copy

    A Christmas Party Fit for the Office

    Bookmark it: del.icio.us digg.com reddit.com netvouz.com google.com yahoo.com technorati.com furl.net bloglines.com socialdust.com ma.gnolia.com newsvine.com slashdot.org simpy.com shadows.com blinklist.com