Autor: programacion

Reusable packaging is often considered a system from the past since it reminds us of the milk-man-model but it is sure coming back to the present and will be the future if we are a growing population of consumers. We have to take into account that soon there will be a billion people living on this planet and, knowing that we have limited resources, we need products that create closed cycles.

That is why reusable packaging is currently one of the sustainable solutions that is growing the most. According to the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, “Reusable packaging is a USD 10+ billion innovation opportunity that can deliver significant user and business benefits”. 

WHAT IS THE CRADLE TO CRADLE MODEL? 

The Cradle to Cradle model aims to eliminate and reduce the creation of packaging by reusing it. The main idea is to: return, refill, repeat. 

Key aspects of Reusable packaging:

Packaging as a value asset and part of the technical cycle. This presents an opportunity to change the way we think about packaging from something inexpensive and light to something that can deliver value to users and businesses. 

Engaging with the consumers: reusable packaging is a great opportunity for brands to build stronger relationships with their clients and have a positive impact in their brand. It is very important for reusable packaging to be successful, to include the consumer in the process and to be able to engage with him through creative campaigns that attract them.

Give the consumer access to more products 

THE TYPES OF REUSABLE SYSTEMS

Business-to-consumer reuse models differ in terms of packaging ‘ownership’ and the requirement for the user to leave home to refill/return the packaging. There are two methods: the retail ready products and the refill stations. 

Refill at home

Users receive at home their product to refill through a subscription service. This model works very well for e-commerce as the company can communicate with consumers through the online process. Some examples could be products that are used at home or at the office regularly such as: personal care, home care or beverages. 

The main benefits of this model are:

The transportation can reduce its cost since there is less package and the consumer can also pay less since he doesn’t have to pay for more packaging. 

Businesses can improve their customer service and build long-lasting relations through subscriptions to users. Also users can benefit from higher convenience by reordering automatically. 

Some examples of companies from the personal care sector that are using refillable at home models are Bite, which delivers toothpaste tablets on subscription or Splosh, a shower and hand soap in concentrate format. 

Refill on the go

The consumer can refill the product in store. For example, Ecoware, Body Shop have a fully automated system through an app and a screen or Swiss stores that are testing reusable dispensers for coffee. In low-income marketsm the model can accommodate customers’ since it is a cheaper price and can replace the single-use sachets. 

The main benefits of this model are:

Users’ can adapt to their necessities and refill whenever they desire

Businesses can analyze the dispensing machines to gather data on customer preferences. 

Businesses can reduce the use of transportation. 

Users can also access to some products easily if brands place more dispensing systems around the cities. 

Unilever is currently using this model with cost-attractive refill stations for top-selling hair products at All This Hair Refillery. 

Return from home 

The package is picked at home by a logistics service. This system is particularly good in urban areas with reduced travel distance between deliveries. It also works well with e-commerce that coordinate properly the pick-up of the package with the delivery of a new product. 

The main benefits of this model are:

Better design: users can be attracted to an improved aesthetic of the package. 

Engaging brand actions: brands can develop activities to encourage users to return the package through rewards. 

Optimisation of processes: brands can collaborate with the different cleaning and transportation companies that are near the different pick-up points in order to create a faster service. 

Users don’t need to worry about reordering products through a subscription.  

An example of this model is Signal toothpaste tabs; they are providing toothpaste tablets in a reusable jar with auto replenishment service. 

Return on the go

The consumer buys the product, uses it and returns the package to the supplier. Then the bottles are refilled and sent to retailers or customers. Takeaway companies for coffee, beverages and food have proven to be good candidates for this type of reusable model. 

The main benefits of this model are:

Brands can provide a superior design in order to attract the customer with different aesthetics. 

Businesses can gather data through smart packaging. 

Brands can improve their client-relationship by creating rewards when the package is returned. 

Network collaboration can enable a better service through logistics and cleaning companies. 

In Canada and the US Plaine Products is providing personal care products in reusable aluminum bottles. 

BENEFITS OF REUSABLE PACKAGE

Reusable packaging is a great solution to reduce plastic pollution. By 2025 100% of plastic packaging must be reusable, recyclable or compostable. Businesses have refocused to achieve this goal and therefore this is a big opportunity for brands and packaging suppliers to embrace reusable solutions.

Business potential: reusing packaging can help companies engage with the consumer during the process and build stronger relationships. For example Carrefour has built an engaging initiative by rewarding those customers that reuse their packages. 

Customizing products: in a society where users are more demanding and prefer personalized products, innovative reuse models can provide more attractive packages and also gather more information through artificial intelligence or smart packaging (LINK ARTICLE). Information on user preferences and system performance can be gathered by incorporating digital technologies such as RFID tags, sensors, and GPS tracking into the reusable packaging system.

Climate and other environmental benefits: replacing single-use to reusable solutions can also reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other negative externalities. 

Cut costs: packaging and transportation costs can be reduced by supplying refills for reusable containers in compact form such as in concentrates or solids. 

Optimize operations: Economies of scale for distribution and logistics can be achieved through sharing reusable packaging across brands, sectors or wider networks.

CHALLENGES OF REUSABLE PACKAGING

Convincing the consumer to change habits: The consumer needs to take care of the reusable packaging by cleaning it and carrying it to the dispensing spots that is why brands must create a proper experience so that users feel encouraged to use the systems and also attract them to packages that are maybe less impressive than the single-use ones.

Logistics: 

Ensuring that the refills come in packaging. 

Building the necessary dispensing spots so consumers can access easily. 

Developing a system that is able to track the packages and handle payouts.

Establishing local reverse logistics to clean refill and ensure environmental feasibility. 

Product safety: Complying product safety in the dispensing machines and during the transportation of the products. 

The increasing demand of customisation among consumers is also causing an evolution in the printing and labeling sectors. The market can now offer cutting edge solutions such as intelligent tags, digital processes or surface effects. Also new coating technologies allow the print to minimalism the scuffing issues in PET bottles.

One of the main trends that most consumers prefer is a clean aesthetic and minimalist decoration as well as the combination of matte and gloss solutions, tactile print and texturing and also vintage look. 

Direct print and effects

We can highlight three major trends in the direct-to-container processes. 

Lower temperature UV LED: this technology enables more temperature control over process water and constant UV output regardless of temperature. Therefore, UV LED is reducing material distortion and also energy while delivering a more durable print. 

Digital print is a trend that can be a very good option for very low or very high runs, or where speed-to-market is important, thanks to its lower cost it is easier to create package samples with digital printing. Another strength is the ability to generate graphics of photographic quality that can also beat flexography printing and other conventional forms. But on the other hand, it is quite an expensive technology for mid-size print runs and is also a challenge when used in surfaces that are curved and not flat or when used in certain paper materials. 

Hot-stamping onto metal and glass: The latest techniques of hot-stamping lay before the foil a UV, this change allows the company to gain a much better adherence and finish to the decoration than before. 

Also in closures there are dip technologies that provide innovative and creative options on caps like rendering each one unique and different. This is a very attractive effect at the point of sales for customers. 

Labels vs Print

In markets such as cosmetics or super-premium wines and spirits, paper labels are a key element to represent authenticity, artisanal and even handmade. The choice of materials has to be coherent with the brands narrative in order to create the proper experience and brand image. 

Labels are a great opportunity to offer a better experience to consumers through touch by choosing the correct materials to attract our customer to touch our package. Either way, brands can also choose a “no-label look” by using transparent materials for their labels with ultra-clear polypropylene (PP) which is also a predominant trend in the sector. 

Other technologies that the label sector offers in order to construct a proper brand image, is the use of multilabel pages: though it may not seem the most sustainable solution, there are labels with sustainable layers that facilitate waste management at recyclers’ plants. An example of a sustainable layer is Avery Dennisons’ bi-oriented polypropylene (BOPP) which works extremely well on PET containers such as personal care products. During the recycling process at the plastics flotation stage, when the container and label have been shredded, the higher-density PET sinks to the bottom of the tank while the lower-density BOPP floats.

Invisible intelligence

Though these type of labels are not considered as decoration, they can add value to the brand and the consumer, therefore brands should also take into consideration invisible intelligence as an option to decorate their packaging. 

These type of labels increase brand awareness since they offer new opportunities. According to technology specialist Databac, the company’s Managing Director, Charles Balcomb, says: “Connected packaging is on the rise and brand authentication is just one facet of that. That’s why chip manufacturers like NXP are starting to target their products to the beauty sector. We are at the start of a boom in this area and it will be interesting to see how it evolves”.

Sleeve notes

Shrink sleeves are a new solution in response to sustainability. A shrink sleeve label consists of a heat-sensitive material that is seamed with openings on the top and bottom to create a sleeve. Once heat is applied, the sleeve will shrink. These thinner films allow to reduce the carbon footprint of the package as well as reduce material and energy. 

RPC M&H offers in-house shrink sleeveling and says that when it comes to graphic effects matte, shiny, texture, tactile, metallic and holographic effects can be combined and also be printed in complex shapes.  

Beauty categories have always been a great opportunity for packaging branding. The ability of brands to create product experiences is what matters. But how can we connect to nowadays customers? What has changed?

Brands are craving for stories and the designers’ job it to sublinate the brands world and address the customers’ expectations. 

1. Analysing the customers’ evolution of mindset

We cannot think of design without talking about the evolution of the customers’ behavior. 

In beauty, the customer has shifted from conceiving beauty as an idealistic concept to diversity and consciousness that beauty is not only one dogma. We can see that all leading brands are conquering the digital native space promoting transparency with messages that talk about “taking care of oneself while making the world better” and avoiding animal testing or unsustainable practices. 

Therefore, as designers, the goal is to catch the new consumers mindsets within holistic brand messages making sure they are taken in consideration in the packaging design. From a communication perspective, you can do short term and promise that you have nothing to hide or that you will change the world with your product… But you still need to stand out from the crowds onshelf. So in that sense, packaging is the best medium to connect brand and customer. 

The role of packaging

Packaging is the core instrument to transmit a brand’s identity: its present at the store, at social media and street campaigns, at customers homes… so it’s very important to guarantee that packaging delivers the story that the brand wants to tell. We have to think of design as what enables us to create a mental imprint to generate sales. 

Moreover, design has the power to concentrate full messages into one device. It’s not only a matter of style, but you need to get further in the story you want to tell so the consumer can get a universal understanding of the brand. 

Best stories around packaging

Nature as a storyteller

Using nature resources like water, flowers… helps the customer to asociate a product with nature and transform it into a ritual. For example, water is energising, a flower is blooming, the bee is harvesting. And then you can translate it into a skin benefit: moisturize thanks to the water or have a resplendent skin thanks to the blooming properties of flowers. The last step, will be to translate this into a design language like using blue colors, splashes in the design…

A good example of a brand that uses nature to position its brand is Abeille Royale, they have built a story of a bee that extracts from the honey properties to create a super protective anti-aging cream through the alveolar system that explains the ritual. 

As we can see, its all about the universal language and creating a communication that can connect with everyones rivers’ of thought. 

Going back to the origin

How do we create a traditional story?

An example of brand that uses origin as its story is a fragrance that was created based on the scent of the first parisian shop. In this case, the product ideation was a perfect fit with the traditional storytelling value. From the packaging perspective, the designers expressed the traditionality through a perfume cap with a printed number on top. All of these stories were represented in an aesthetic way to attract the customer. 

Key tips for your stories

Integrate sustainability at a core brand message

How can we integrate sustainability?

Before it was trendy to put sustainability in briefs 

Create an emotional connection with consumers

We are living in a very competitive market and we need to find new entries to the categories. Through packaging we can connect in a strong and an emotional way. For example if you put packaging as a star medium and use transmedia campaigns to create interactive stories with your customer, it is more likely that you gain engagement with your customer and build a better relation with them. 

Reusability of the packaging

Unfortunately, sustainability cannot always be achieved that is why sometimes we have to be creative and think about how we could give a second life to our package and inspire the consumer.  For example, there is a champagne company that transformed its packaging into an ice-bucket. This way it is not only a value for sustainability but also for usability. The packaging can have second lives and be part of the product ritual. 

It can also create a product experience, the spirit company Hennessy, created a shaker that was included with the bottle and Veuve Cjicquot had a special packaging that reflected the storytelling of the brand: the use of a mailbox to pay tribute to the origin of the brand (how the brand wrote letters to clients). 

All in all, we cannot talk about packaging without mentioning sustainability. We want to sustain the world we live in by making things smarter, safer and better but for this to be possible we need to question our ability to invest in innovation, time and money. So, in the end we need to work a lot and work together (marketing, production and creation) to build strong brands and make sure we make things the right way. 

If designing an original idea has the power to federate across a shared mental imprint, then design is the best currency to set a dialogue between the brand world and cultural anchorages. The aim of design is to make sure that stories tease curiosity and complicity. 

One of the challenges of sustainability is how to engage the consumer into the process. For example, if we develop products that are recyclable but consumers don’t recycle it, we have got a broken system since it’s not circular. The main issue is that the consumer’s common thought is “sustainability is not my problem, it’s the brands’ problem”.Therefore it is important to get consumers to buy these new sustainable processes apart from the product. So, how can we trace this behaviour and engage the customer to be part of the sustainable process?

From a capitalistic perspective, designers actually created the consumer throw-away society: they made it exciting to throw away things through aesthetics and usability. So design has the power and responsibility to replace our throwaway consumer culture with new behaviours and lifestyles that match our best intentions and shape a better future for us all. 

Creating a sustainable brand through packaging

61% of consumers say that they’re likely to switch to a brand that is more environmentally friendly than their current brand. But how do they connect to the correct brands? Right now everyone is communicating sustainability the same way: using color green, the same eco-labels, arrows… So there is so much noise that the consumer is confused and it is very difficult to stand out. If we want to create a different brand and attract more customers, we have to appeal to people’s human nature. 

Human biases is the theory that studies human behaviour and it has to be a roadmap for designers to see how we can connect to human biases to make a difference with our design. If we apply human biases to design we can point out these main aspects to take into account:

EASY: Designing the path of least resistance by reducing complexity and making effortless products. 

ATTRACTIVE: Designing enhanced value through improved utility, experience and aesthetic. It often includes personalisation. 

SOCIAL: Design to build community, new social norms and positive peer pressure that encourage group commitments.

TIMELY: Designing products, activations and communications to prompt people when they are likely to be receptive and maximising immediate benefits. For example, designing packaging for masks during the COVID19. 

Using gamification to connect with our customers

Although coffee cups are a very useful design; easy to apply, no cleaning needed, cheap… 2.5b coffee cups are binned each year in the UK! This is an unsustainable amount of packaging. To solve this problem, CupClub created a social campaign to recycle these cups. They engaged with the consumer through visual and colorful communication in the streets of London. So they applied three of the main aspects of human bias: EASY, ATTRACTIVE and SOCIAL. They have created a strong identity and changed consumer behaviours. 

What do you need to take into account to design sustainable packaging?

It is important to know the human thoughts and perceptions before designing new sustainable solutions and creating our brand identity. Here are some of the key aspects you must know before choosing your ideal design: 

The power of value perception: usually big packages are associated with more quantity and therefore if we use a smaller package though it contains the same, we have to communicate it. 

Accepting small steps: if we are moving to RPET we need to reframe it to the consumer and let him know that it will take long to implement material changes in products. For example, LEGO wanted to move to bioplastics for their pieces so as a start they made a clever move and only changed their natural figures like forests, and created a proper storytelling about how nature is made of bioplastics. 

The danger of nature: Consumers have an image of how natural looks (usually represented with brown and green colours). There is an issue on how we automatically go for a design that looks natural but often the solution is something technical.

Rivers of thought: When we want to design something new, we have to take into account the social learnings and deep thoughts of consumers. For example, if we create a package to be used for the toilet we can’t also sell it to be used for the kitchen because it is against consumers normal perception of use, and therefore, it is likely to be rejected. 

The consequences of durable: we think about durable packaging as something that the consumer can keep and can become ownable and precious. But also we have to think that products will wear and a challenge for designers is how we design things that last and are at the same time appealing (an opposite thing of what we have been teaching and selling at the moment). 

The right tone: the way we talk to consumers is key in behavior changing. If we talk in an imperative way like “You have to recycle” the reaction will be negative and they will automatically think “Who are you to tell me what to do?” They have to feel involved with the brand to feel engaged. It’s good to use humor and more informal language. 

Using all senses: we have a lot of senses to play with so why not use them? A good example is how toothpaste brands use flavour to encourage the user to brush their teeth at least twice a day. If we didn’t get that mint fresh sensation, we probably wouldn’t wash our teeth everyday. Our sensorial feedback is really powerful to engage with a product. 

All in all, if we start with a sustainable win with consumers, you will have a sustainable win for your company. And not only from an ethical point of view, but also a sustainable one:

UNILEVER says that in 2018 sustainable brands grew 69% faster than the rest of business and delivered 75% of unilever’s turnover growth.