box vox

Packaging and Consumer Confusion

Top photo by Joan Marcus from 9 to 5 The Musical site (Megan Hilty as Doralee, Allison Janney as Violet—holding the boxes—and Stephanie J. Block as Judy); lower photo from Tiny Details dollhouse miniatures site (See also: Dollhouse Packaging)

This weekend I happened to catch some of 9 to 5—(that movie from 1980 starring Dolly Parton, Lilly Tomlin and Jane Fonda)—on TV. A significant plot point hinges on the issue of consumer confusion between two fictional packaged goods. Violet (played by Lily Tomlin in the movie) inadvertently purchases “Rid O Rat” rat poison, mistaking it for “Skinny n Sweet” artificial sweetener. She puts some in her boss’s coffee before realizing her error, and complications ensue.

Conclusion? While trademark law is generally more concerned with similarly packaged products in the same product category—(unfair competition and all)—clearly, there are also pitfalls to cross-category consumer confusion. (See also: Medicine Cabinet Candy)

Hence, the popular 9 to 5 catch phrase: “It looks just like Skinny ’n Sweet… except for the little skull and crossbones on the label.”

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Dead Rabbits and Carrots Beer

Promotional packaging for San Francisco’s Carrots Boutique by advertising firm, Pereira & O’Dell. (Package design variously credited to Chris M. Romero and also Dan Van Der Deen.)

The objective was to create a buzz around this high-end fashion boutique (CARROTS) and specifically around their men’s line, driving new male customers into the store. We created a limited edition, designer beer made from carrots. We brewed the beer, handcrafted the bottle wraps, and applied the labels. The 22(oz.) burlap-wrapped bottles were hand-delivered as gifts to specifically targeted men and the 12(oz.) beers were served at CARROTS-sponsored events and in-store to enhance men’s shopping experiences.  Among the hundreds that received the bottle as a gift and the ones that tried it in the store, many people actually placed orders for beer to take home, turning a unique promotional item into a sexy and successful new product. Not to mention creating a buzz around the store.

–Pereira & O’Dell

The label and package design caters to the (presumably male) cartoon sensibility, wherein deceased creatures have X’s for eyes. Hence: a dead rabbit icon whose X-shaped eyes are also echoed in the orange stitching of the burlap “bottle wrap”. The burlap is another macabre touch, wrapping the bottle in a sort of burial shroud. The effect is dark and portentous—albeit in a cute, Tim Burton-ish sort of way.

This is a beer made from carrots, (for a store named “Carrots”) so that explains the rabbit. But why dead? “Dead rabbit” could be taken as a reference to girls getting pregnant—(as in “the rabbit died”)—but that seems unlikely to be the message here...

There was also a “Dead Rabbits” gang in NYC in the 1850s whose story was fictionalized in Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. (Again: not likely the intentional reference for us here.)

Is the idea just that Carrots Beer packs such a punch that our rabbit is merely knocked out and not dead at all? That might be closer to it... Plus, multiple Xs have implications with regard to alcoholic beverage quality and —(in the public’s cartoon imagination, at least)— with regard to alcohol potency. Think: XXX.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Nutella & Go: a jar-facade pack

Photo on left via: Global Pack Gallery; photo on right via: Grand Brands

A little like one of those fake buildings from an early Hollywood western—propped up from behind with scaffolding: the Nutella & GO! pack looks like a jar—or a portion of a jar—but is actually more akin to the bottle & jar shaped packets that we covered last week. (Note how the chamber containing the actual Nutella does not extend all the way to the base of the package.)

(Counter-display/case-pack & video, after the fold...)

Cans Without Labels

Animator/cartoonist, John Kricfalusi tells an interesting autobiographical story about his dad’s motivation to buy all the “cans without labels” from their supermarket. His “George Liquor” character (above) plays the thrifty father figure. Below, John K tells the story in his own words.

It’s telling that, in order to “pitch” his project, Kricfalusi relies both on his skills as a raconteur as well as a cartoonist. Naturally, I dig the packaging-based story line (dramatically highlighting the importance of labels!) I also like the Ren & Stimpy-ish glee that Kricfalusi shows in George Liquor’s face as he demonstrates his deeply flawed method of sussing out the contents of the unlabeled cans.

(More “Cans Without Labels” artwork from John K., after the fold...)

Cross-Category Packaging (Part 3: Egg Cartons)

Top row, left: ”Soggs,“ socks from Xplorys (the same company that brought us FreshWear baby clothes, packaged in milk cartons); on right: egg shaped candles from Coastal Candle Supply; 2nd row, left: Soso in egg-shaped salt shakers (via the dieline); on right: a six-pack of Tenga “egg” sex toys; 3rd row from left (clockwise): marshmallow eggs (from Cybele-’s Flickr Photostream); Benny Bully’s “egg chop” dog treats; Swatch “CHICCHIRICHI” watch and packaging, and “Dancing Egg” game packaging from Haba Toys; on right “Feeling Egg” LED light set packaging; 4th row, left: chocolate eggs from Thompson Candy; on right: a Language Egg Carton Game; 5th row, left: Disney’s Chicken Little figures packaging (via Stuart Ng Books and Toy Whiz); on right: a craft felt egg carton project via eBay; below that: MailleBox yarn packaging (photo from PutYourFlareOn’s Flickr Photostream); 6th row: children’s “egg” toy packaging; bottom row: Asher Jasper’s packaging for felted creatures

Continuing with the cross-category series—(as defined in Part 1)—here are egg cartons which do not contain eggs. (At least not the genuine, laid-by-a-hen type of egg.)

For Easter candy & chocolate eggs (and other deliberately egg-shaped items) it‘s not really such a stretch to come up with the idea of packaging them like eggs. Not so obvious that socks, sex toys, pet treats, yarn, salt, felt toys & LED lights could also be packaged this way.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Tin Can Telephones

The tin can telephone or “string phone,” though not the beloved childhood toy it once was, still lives on as symbolic shorthand for “communication” on stock photo sites and in the occasional television ad. This campaign for Progresso Soup makes interesting use of the device—each commercial showing consumers using empty Progresso Soup cans to engage in various tin-can-telephone conversations about the product.

(Another “string phone” film, after the fold...)

The Front Line

From Readers Digest (“in Cooperation with Super Market Institute”) this 1965 training film for grocery store “checkers” uses a cute war metaphor for the grocery business:

“Some people call this a war. War or not, one thing is for sure, a daily battle is being waged in supermarkets all over this country, a battle for the customer’s dollar.”

(Via the Internet Archive)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Mustard Jar Fight Scene

The famous mustard-jar-fight-scene from “This Boy’s Life” features Robert DeNiro as the scary, abusive “Dwight,” using a not-quite-empty-enough mustard jar to punish young Leonardo DiCaprio (as “Toby”) for having wasted the remaining contents. (Sorry about the bad aspect ratio of the video—not my doing...)

Shows how a humble mustard jar can become a fiendish weapon—(see: Package as Weapon—which, come to think of it, also features poor Leonardo DiCaprio as a victim.) This harrowing scene also raises a practical question about packaging: how much of a package’s contents can we reasonably expect to actually use? And how much is inaccessible and will therefore be wasted?

Kai-yu Lei’s “dual-open bottle” (above) that I just noticed on PopSop, attempts to address this issue. As does Sherwood Forlee’s reversible peanut butter jar that we wrote about last year. Checking Forlee’s website again, I see he’s made some actual prototypes since then. (below)

 

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Hinge-Lid, Hard-Pack, Flip-Top Box

Now following up the Marlboro thread... (begun here and here)...

I happened to learn that it wasn’t Frank Gianninoto who designed the “flip-top box” as Thomas Hine (and others) seem to infer:

“Perhaps the most radical part of Gianninoto’s design was the new physical form it gave the package... a cardboard box with a top that flipped open.”

Marlboro Country Was One No Man’s Land
By Thomas Hine, April 16, 1995, NY Times

But, judging from other descriptions of the Marlboro pack design process, Gianninoto was responsible for the graphic design of the package—not the structural design.

...At David Lyon's suggestion, the company hired a new package designer, Frank Gianninoto, to respond to the Philip Morris call for “a bold, masculine-type package.” Production chief Clark Ames had recently returned from Germany with a flip-top box, hoping that it might serve as a prototype for the new Marlboro package. Initially the design team opposed the hard box, seeing it as a throwback to the 1850s, but the ultimately adopted it, eventually making rugged durability part of the brand's masculine image.

Producing fashion: commerce, culture, and consumers
By Regina Lee Blaszczyk

Delving a little deeper, what I seemed to learn was that it was Desmond W. Molins of The Molins Machine Company who had designed the structure:

The 1950s saw the introduction of the hinge-lid pack, which was originally invented and patented by Walter’s son, Desmond Molins, in 1937. The hinge-lid pack was a major step forward from the previous soft packs, which allowed cigarettes to be damaged, and was used by Philip Morris in 1954 to relaunch the Marlboro brand: it was instantly successful and Marlboro sales increased 50 fold.

From the Molin PLC website

(Looking in the online patent databases, I could not find the Desmond W. Molins 1937 hinge-lid pack patent. The patent drawings shown here are from subsequent patents, improving on the “prior art.”)

As a packaging machine company, Molins naturally offered a machine capable of making these new “hinge lid packs”—namely the “hinge lid packer” or “HLP.”

Archival photos from the Molins Tobacco Machinery site

Yet another version of the story of how Philip Morris came to adopt the Molins hinge-lid pack seems to focus on the hinge-lid packer machinery:

Desmond Molins well remembers the disappointment when the first hinge lid packer, which produced a two-row pack, was not well received. This type of packer only became popular after the chance sighting of a sample three row pack by a visiting Philip Morris representative who immediately recognised its potential.

World Tobacco
September, 1985

(Another patent drawing and a related video, after the fold...)

Damian Ortega & Mexican Coke

Damian Ortega, “120 Days” (2002)

In 2002 Damián Ortega collaborated with Italian glassblowers to make alterations to 120 Coca Cola Bottles. Entitled “120 Days”—in reference both to the de Sade novel “The 120 Days of Sodom” and to the film Salò—this artwork follows the logic of the package-as-body metaphor to it logical (sadistic) conclusion.

“The idea of the Coke, the disorder produces fun but also some strange feeling, like something is wrong. ‘This Coca-Cola is so weird. Something’s wrong with them.’ It’s like the birds in the Hitchcock film, no? It’s like, hmm. Who are we? What are we doing? What are we thinking? What is our own relationship with the objects within society or the context.”

From Greg Cook’s Interview with  Damian Ortega
The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research

“Molecula de Glucosa Expandidais” (an installation composed of bottle-caps strung on steel, loosely based on the glucose molecule)

In “Molecula de Glucosa Expandidais” Ortega used bottle caps to make a giant hanging glucose molecule. (Coincidentally alluding to that secret ingredient that has recently set Mexican Coke apart in the minds of some consumers—namely: sugar.)

“Molécula de glucose expandida is a work that deals with the consumption of sugar in Mexico as a collective and cultural phenomenon. It is exhibited as a molecule formed by particles that are soda bottlecaps collected from stores and restaurants in Mexico City. I enlarged the molecule to a huge size. It is a rhizome hanging from the ceiling, growing and expanding in the space like an alien. This work can be grasped from the inside or from the outside. It is a chemical structure, but also a social one: micro and macro.”

–Damián Ortega from Champ de Vision, Damián Ortega Part 2
by Anna Hiddleston and Sinziana Ravini

(A couple more photos, after the fold...)

IlliteRAT with Alpha-bits

IlliteRAT ©1976 David Wilder (starring my pet rat, Lucky)

Not the first time we’ve mentioned rats (or mice) here on box vox and, as previously disclosed, I myself, once had a pet rat. Given to me by another rodent-loving classmate at RISD, “Lucky” played a starring role in my friend, David Wilder’s video, illiteRAT. Hadn’t seen this tape in over 30 years, but I think its conceptual rigor still holds up.

And it was nice for me to see the little feller again, after all this time. (I don’t really remember what the cereal box looked like that Lucky’s Alpha-bits came in. Lets just say, for arguments sake, that it was the one on the left—photo from The Imaginary World—with the mouth-shaped, faux die cut window.)

In my last year at school, I lived in an office building in downtown Providence where I’d let Lucky scamper, dog-like, about the loft. It’s surprising how frisky a rat can be.

I recall eating a lot of ice-cream cones one Summer. (This was before I found out I was diabetic.) I got into a habit of methodically reducing the size of the ice-cream cone—keeping it in classic proportions—until I had formed a miniature, rat-size ice-cream cone. This, I would then present to Lucky and he’d grab it in his hands and eagerly finish it off. (Sort of fractal, now that I think of it...)

Sadly, my free-range policy of giving Lucky the run of the place, ultimately led to his demise. Turned out there were dusty old trays of rat poison under the radiators, that I didn’t know were there.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Tub Packaging

Realizing that I needed a more apropos publicity photo for the upcoming S.A.P. landfill event than the “ye olde” fake-tintype photo I’d been using—(with the Edison Volt guitar, which, while owing a certain debt to cigar box guitars, does not really say “PACKAGING!” in any meaningful way)—I sought a better way to package present myself.

What was needed, I figured, was a photo combining me, a guitar and a whole lot of packaging. After searching the house and failing to turn up any bucket seats or butterfly chairs capable of fully containing me and my groceries, it suddenly dawned on me: the bathtub! Here was not only a practical solution to a logistical problem, but also—(since I care about such things)—an image fraught with artistic precedent. The cover of The Who Sell Out, for example, included packaging, performer and bathtub. (The Mamas and the Papas also come to mind, although: no packaging.)

But after first touting the CD packaging and now the press photo, maybe it's time I reveal a little product...

Here’s a sound clip of the first of 4 “feature tracks” on the Songs About Packaging CD:

The Prettiest Package: This song really started with the title and was sort of named after Bowie’s “The Prettiest Star.” (By no means, my favorite track from Aladdin Sane, but ever since I heard it used in the opening soundtrack of the film, Kinky Boots—I hear it differently now.) But I digress. Aside from the title, there’s nothing Bowie-esque about “The Prettiest Package”. (It has nothing to do with Trans Cans and everything to do with Packaging Drag.)

Note: The sound file above is just an excerpt of the song. There are other full-length mp3 files available here, but I’m just trying to maintain a little artificial scarcity for these 4 new songs. (And as mentioned before: the entire CD will be distributed for free to all who attend the free landfill performance on Sept. 26th.)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Immaterial Packaging?

“Immaterial Trophy” designed by Tjep in 2005 for Amsterdam’s Koos Andriessen ICT award

Rob Walker’s Consumed column in today’s NY Times examines the business of selling so-called “digital goods.” (Facebook “gifts” and clothing for virtual world avatars, etc.) To my mind, these sorts of products are imaginary and I never thought they posed much of a competitive threat to “the real world.” But as Walker’s article shows, the business of selling imaginary product seems to have legs and is earning some real money:

“Consuming things made of bits might sound weird, but actually it offers a lot of the same attractions that make people consume things made of atoms.”

Immaterialism, NY Times Magazine, April 29, 2009

Which makes me wonder: is there any money to be made in the packaging of these digital goods? Peter Arkle’s illustration for this article—(link)—shows multicolored pixels emerging from a line drawing of an unwrapped gift box. This is just a metaphor, however, since avatar outfits & Facebook gifts do not require packaging. Would anyone want a digital package for these products? Maybe an icon of a package that opens when you click on it?

As a package designer, should I be worried? Not ALL products can be virtual. We still need food and other real-world necessities and so—(short of some Matrix-like descent into an entirely virtual existence)—I’m guessing that some of our needs and nourishment would continue to be consumed via packaging.

Would it be enough to sustain an entire packaging industry? (Or is that immaterial?)

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design

Colombian Milk

Packaging from my recent trip to Colombia. These are bags of milk, sold room temperature without need for refrigeration. The milk is packaged at a very high temperature, thus killing any microbiological agents. This eliminates the need for coolers in the store, refrigerated trucks to ship, and allows the milk to be kept for several weeks if unopened. Not exactly stackable or easily poured from.

I like the splash of milk with the cow shape formed from the negative space.

Daniel Wangelin
[re]noun creative

8 Can Houses

As with bottle houses, there are also a few houses made out of cans. Tin can wall construction is not as popular as bottle wall construction. This may be due both to fact that the cans, by themselves, do not provide the cumulative tensile strength necessary for load-bearing walls. (Or perhaps bottles just win out over cans, on account of the stained glass window effect.)

Sometimes the cans are added to the houses later, either as a recycled kind of DIY aluminum siding or as decorative details.

(8 examples follow after the fold...)

Slave-Free Chocolate Packaging

Photo from RuSt’s Flickr Photostream

The anti-slave-labor brand with the wacky, retro typography—Tony’s Chocolonely is the creation of Dutch filmmaker, Teun Van de Keuken, who is rapidly becoming the Willy Wonka of human rights.

“I never thought I’d be a candy man,” says Van de Keuken with a laugh. “But that’s what the job asks from me for now.” Teun — or Tony — is certainly an unlikely chocolatier. A journalist and filmmaker, he produces a popular Michael Moore-style consumer advocacy TV program. But after learning that in Cote d’Ivoire, which produces some 40% of the world’s cocoa, tens of thousands of children are forced to work on plantations, many of them in virtual slavery, the chocolate lover became a chocolate maker.

“Slaves to Chocolate?” By Lauren Comiteau, Time Magazine, Friday,  May. 25,  2007 

Van de Keuken brought attention to this issue by personally consuming 19 chocolate bars and then trying (and failing) to get himself prosecuted in Dutch court for “knowingly buying a product made with slave labor”—and made a documentary film about it called “Tony and the Chocolate Factory.” (See the trailer is below:)

(Something else about Tony’s Chocolonely, after the fold...)

Ostalgie Repack

I finally got to see Wolfgang Becker’s 2003 film, Good Bye Lenin!

Continuing to follow the thread of communist packaging—or is it more of a cosmonaut’s tethered space walk that I’m doing, here? After all, the protagonist in the film, Alex Kerner (played by Daniel Brühl, above) grew up idolizing East German cosmonaut, Sigmund Jähn — and the Soviet space race certainly figures into the plot, but it’s really the starring role that GDR packaging plays in this story, that I want to focus on.

Alex’s mother, Christiane has been a coma since just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. When she awakens, eight months later...

Her doctor asserts that any shock might cause another, possibly fatal, attack. Alex realizes that the discovery of recent events would be too much for her to bear, and so sets out to maintain the illusion that things are as before in the German Democratic Republic. To this end, he and Ariane [his sister] return the previous drab decor to the apartment, dress in their old clothes, and feed the bed-ridden Christiane new Western produce from old-labeled jars.

from the Good Bye Lenin! Wikipedia Entry

It is the repackaging of Western products into recycled East German packaging that keeps Alex very busy throughout much of the film.

(see more packaging from Good Bye Lenin!, after the fold...)

Canadian Candy Bar Revolt

In the previous post I wondered what was going on around 1948 that might have made a product package carrying a picket sign seem like a cute idea. One possible answer? In April of 1947 there was a Canadian children’s consumer uprising against a post-war, 3¢ hike in candy bar prices. (From 5¢ to 8¢)

The Five Cent War” is a documentary film about this brief consumer revolt. Above is the trompe’loel candy bar/movie poster. (Note: the hammer & sickle ¢ sign!) Below is the film’s trailer.

Canadian children’s 1947 consumer revolt: the 8¢ candy bar boycott

(More about “The Five Cent War” after the fold...)

CCCP Energy Drink

 Last month I was taken to Net Cost Market, our Russian supermarket here on Staten Island. I was amused by this CCCP Energy Drink and so I bought it. (Similar to Leninade, mentioned in an earlier post.)

What so funny about CCCP? Well, prior to SCTV’s parody of imaginary Russian television shows, I didn’t know from CCCP. As an American born in 1955 (one year after the Army-McCarthy hearings) I only knew it as USSR.

In 1968–1969, I was in high school attending a “civics” class taught by a Mr. Governol. (I kid you not.) One day in class, Mr. Governol tried a fairly progressive teaching approach. Obtaining a record player from the AV department, he played for us, the Beatles hit B-side “Revolution.” He was particularly intent that we should listen to the lyrics, hoping, I suppose, that we wouldn’t go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao.

Another Beatles song from that period that Mr. Governol did not play for us: “Back in the USSR.” The song which, with one simple lyrical trick, manages to conflate both sides of the iron curtain... “Back in the US—back in the US—back in the USSR” (Try doing that with CCCP!)

(More communist packaging, after the fold...)

Packaging Costumes

Dancing Old Gold Cigarettes[1] from early print ad; Pringles promo costume by Facemakers, Inc.; Miracle Whip costume by Total Fabrication

Package as costume. Anthropomorphic packaging shows us how we identify with the products we purchase. (Why wouldn’t we? They’re so like us, it’s uncanny.) But some go further...

Consider these “packaging impersonators” who actually dress up like product packages. Now I grant you, for many it’s just a job. Say, you’ve just graduated college and the economy’s not so hot. Maybe your Doctorate in English Literature—(or your Masters in Art History or your Bachelors degree in Package Design)—are not the keys to the kingdom that you once imagined. So you make a lateral move and accept a freelance gig doing “promotional product walk-arounds”. You appear in costume at grocery stores, trade events, television commercials—whatever the market requires. Does that make you a packaging impersonator? Hey, if the shoe box fits...

Anyway, it seems fitting this Halloween to acknowledge this overlooked subculture of cross-dressing consumers. Total Fabrication, the company that made the Miracle Whip costume above, also made the costumes that appeared in the funny RC Cola commercials directed by Christopher Guest.

Director, Christopher Guest giving his actors their motivational cues

All of the ads in the series feature the travails of the “walk-around” promo RC bottle, but the commercial below seems particularly relevant to our subject at hand...

Of course, it’s not just professional performers who are dressing in “trade dress” drag. Many consumers are indulging in amateur packaging impersonation this Halloween. Dressing up as their most beloved retail products, perhaps hoping to get some of that good consumer love and loyalty beyond reason for themselves.

(“Joe Six-Pack” and dancing cigarette packs, after the jump...)