packaging

Yesterday evening I had the pleasure of appearing on Radio New Zealand. Having spoken on a number of radio stations I must say I was really impressed with the professionalism of the station in its pre and post show organisation.

What’s better than a chocolate chip cookie? A chocolate chip cookie in a package optimized with neuromarketing. Consumer companies don’t often talk about their neuromarketing efforts, perhaps because of the vaguely scary sound of it all. Some of the rare public windows into neuromarketing studies have been in the packaging area, notably the Campbell’s Soup project. Now we have another packaging study to review, this time involving Gerber baby food and Chips Ahoy cookies.

"eCoupled intelligent wireless power is so flexible it can actually be printed directly onto packaging. A low-cost enhancement to product packaging, printed coils allow real-time communication from the package to the store shelf, and then to the store’s inventory management system.

Today, Stonyfield Farm, the organic yogurt company, is unveiling a new packaging solution: A yogurt cup made from corn.

It's not the first revolution in yogurt cups, or the first packaging innovation made from corn. But Stonyfield's journey to today is a case study in sustainability, innovation, persistence, and systems thinking that I think is worth sharing.

Book Review: Shopper Marketing – How to Increase Purchase Decisions at the Point of Sale, Edited by Markus Stahlberg and Ville Maila

I’ve been chronicling the nascent neuromarketing industry since 2006, and I don’t think I’ve seen a story to date which captured social media attention to the degree that the recent Campbell Soup neuromarketing story did. The original story in the Wall Street Journal fueled a mini-boom of Twitter and blogging activity. Why? I think the fact that a major consumer products company went on the record about their use of neuromarketing, and even provided specifics of how they changed their marketing, was the driving force. This was an unusually detailed look inside a practical application of neuromarketing.

Soup is a product you probably don’t lust for. Sure, a hot bowl of soup is nice after a chilly job of shoveling snow out of the driveway, but rarely is it more than an afterthought, or a quick prelude to a more interesting main course. If you are Campbell Soup Co., though, you DO spend a lot of time thinking about soup. And, as detailed by the Wall Street Journal, they want to understand YOUR hidden feelings about soup to improve their packaging:

by: Marina Natanova

by: Roger Dooley

Selling salty chips to guys isn’t all that difficult. As the classic Lay’s commercial noted, “You can’t eat just one!” Give a guy a chip, and before you know it the bag is gone. For women, though, salty foods are the snack of choice just 14% of the time. They prefer sweet snacks (25%) and, amazingly, healthier fare like fruits and vegetables (61%). Disturbed that women might prefer carrot sticks to potato chips, Frito Lay decided to get inside women’s heads. Literally.