article by : ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

This article from the New York Times is a great example of how packaging of a product can help sales of the product.

SALES of facial tissue during the cold and flu season are, appropriately enough, feverish, but not so during the summer. In the four weeks that ended July 12, 2009, for example, revenue for the products totaled $57.8 million, compared with $92.4 million in the four weeks ending Jan. 24, 2010, a difference of nearly 60 percent, according to SymphonyIRI Group, a market research company whose data does not include Wal-Mart sales.

Now Kleenex, the brand that invented facial tissues 86 years ago, is hoping to bolster summer sales with packages that resemble wedges of fruit and look more at home on a picnic table than a bedside table. The A-frame packages, featuring fruits like watermelon, orange and lime, were available only at Target last summer, and are being sold at all major retailers this summer.

“This keeps the category relevant during this time of year,” said Craig Smith, brand director of Kleenex, a Kimberly-Clark brand. Mr. Smith said that with the fruit packaging test run last summer, “we saw close to 100 percent incrementality,” meaning sales of the novelty box did not cannibalize sales of standard Kleenex boxes.

“People who were not engaged by the facial tissue category were pulled in, while regular users were buying this special package in addition to their normal facial tissue purchases,” Mr. Smith said.

Introduced in 1924 as a “sanitary cold cream remover,” Kleenex derived its name both from that cleaning function and to link it phonetically to Kotex, the sanitary napkin Kimberly-Clark had introduced just four years earlier. (The name Kotex refers to “cotton texture.”)

Shortly after Kleenex appeared in stores, a Kimberly-Clark researcher with hay fever began blowing his nose with the tissues. This moment — call it achoo! meets aha! — led Kleenex to recast the brand: advertising proclaimed it “the handkerchief for health.”

Today Kleenex is the dominant brand, with a 46 percent market share, but it has lost ground during the downturn as consumers have switched to cheaper store brands. Private-label sales over the 52 weeks ending June 13 increased 6.4 percent while Kleenex sales dropped 5.5 percent and Puffs, a Procter & Gamble brand, dropped 3.2 percent, according to SymphonyIRI. Private-label brands account for 23 percent of the market and Puffs accounts for 25 percent.

“Private-label sales continue to grow even as the segment declines as consumers find increased quality among private label,” stated a 2008 report by Mintel, a market research firm. Among consumers who still spring for nationally advertised brands, 15 percent of respondents to a Mintel survey said they did so “because the package or pattern on the product is nicer.”

Kleenex has in recent years paid particular attention to aesthetics, introducing an oval-shaped package in 2005, embossed wallpaperlike patterns in 2006 and, for the 2008 holiday season, an oval carton with a pattern of Christmas lights that actually flickered when a tissue was pulled out.

Today the average home contains four boxes of facial tissue, and users purchase tissues about eight times a year, according to Kleenex research. The most popular room for a box is the bathroom, followed by the home office, bedroom and living room.

While the purpose for most packaging is to grab attention from the shelf and to protect products on their journey from manufacturer to retailer to consumer, the package for facial tissues serves as a dispenser for the life of the product — and is prominently displayed in the home.

“With Kleenex we really consider the package as part of the product we’re providing,” said Christine Mau, brand design director at Kimberly-Clark. “That’s what really sets Kleenex apart.”

In Neenah, Wis., where the Kleenex brand team is based (Kimberly-Clark’s world headquarters are in Dallas), designers occupy a section of the offices called the “trend area,” where new designs are developed.

“Designers bring in rugs, pillows, little girls’ dresses — anything they think is building a story,” Ms. Mau said. “We’re encouraged to play in our work.” Along with subscribing to over 50 home décor and design magazines, the team attends numerous home décor shows internationally.

Last year, the design team was given a challenge that “was less about home décor and more about creating seasonal interest during the summer months,” Ms. Mau said. “We were asking, ‘How do you crack the code and take something that you kind of take for granted and create this consumer delight, this impulse purchase right on the spot?’ ”

The team first settled on a watermelon, because “it was the ubiquitous symbol of summer and of fun and happiness for everyone — you don’t have to have a boat or a summer cottage,” Ms. Mau said. The idea for the wedge-shaped box, and for other fruits, followed.

After their limited introduction in Target last summer, the boxes, which feature illustrations in a photo-realist style by Hiroko Sanders, a Los Angeles illustrator, earned numerous design awards, including best in show from Pentawards, an international package design competition. A member of the Pentawards jury, Lars Wallentin, is quoted on the organization’s Web site saying that the Kleenex package is “very attractive, full of joy and freshness” and “shows great maturity, because the consumer is not bombarded with information that he neither really needs nor wants.”

Another indication that the brand is striking a design chord: consumers are less inclined to shroud tissue boxes with either handmade or store-bought covers. According to Kleenex, which tracks such behavior, today only 12 percent of consumers cover tissue boxes, down from 19 percent in 1986.

1. Utilize the latest in varnish and coatings that are available to add special effects. Strike through dull varnish with overall gloss coating creates the effect of offline spot dull and gloss varnish without the additional cost of extra passes on press. It also eliminates the need to “dust” the sheets after printing to reduce the feel of spray powder build up. “Soft Touch” coating can also be done in-line to create the velvet feel of a more expensive paper.
2. When printing on uncoated papers, replace standard 4cp inks with special “kaleidoscope” 4cp to brighten up colors and extend the color gamut range of traditional 4cp inks and minimize the flattening of colors when ink soaks into the paper.
3. Be flexible when it comes to size. Purchasing agents are often given the task of meeting client’s budgets while maintaining the integrity of a designer’s specifications. Often time tests are designed for the short run sheet-fed market. Postcards are a classic example: 6”x9” is a great fit for a 20” x 26” or 28” x 40” sheet sizes with plenty of room for bleeds and color bars. However, when the rollout comes and the quantity is large enough for the web market, the size is a bad fit.
4. In years past the standard for commodity grade offset was 88 bright while opaque papers were typically 92 bright. Today, commodity grade offsets are 92 bright while opaque papers are typically 96 bright. Selecting a commodity grade offset over an opaque for a light to medium coverage project can save as much as 15% on the cost to print. Naturally, some projects with heavy ink coverage will still require opaque for its ability to conceal show-through.
5. However, working with designers early on may help to avoid the need for opaque paper by limiting ink saturation on both the front and back of your project.
6. Try testing 3 different creatives by running them as an A/B/C split, one running over the other. When inserted, every other piece will be different. This is a good way to find out what graphics or offers will pull a better ROI. Three into the cutoff, three different graphics delivered and mixed every impression.
7. For quality issues with folding and cracking of self mailers always try to plan jobs using “grain correct” layouts. At times this is not possible with stock sheets so we will have stock converted to a short grain size to accommodate. A good question the marketing executive/print buyer can ask their printer is if the job is “grain correct”.
8. Many of today’s jobs are run on silks/velvets/dulls where printability is awesome and it’s being used more and more but the downfall is it’s susceptible to easily marking in handling/bindery/mailing. The solution is to add driers to inks/seal with coating/varnish.
9. Generally speaking, most continuous form half web paper comes in stocking sizes of 18” and 23” wide. If the project demands a quick turn time, estimating will use a standard size stock. As a result, an end user will get more value if the form is designed keeping these sizes in mind.
10. If a continuous form has large areas of solid print or heavy copy, running it on a UV press will minimize any potential offsetting issues.
11. Add smell and touch to the visual impact of your printed pieces through the use of specialty coatings. How would you like to have an image of a cherry smell like a cherry, an image of cement feel like cement, a sandy beach feel like sand or a piece of fabric feel silky smooth. These are just some of the available coating options that can be applied overall or by utilizing a Cyrel plate for spot applications.
12. When producing a large quantity on 100# gloss cover, consider changing to 9 pt gloss cover because 9pt can be produced on a web press, but most 100# gloss cover cannot.
13. Avoid final sizes that are a perfect square because they are usually a bad fit on press. You will waste paper.
14. To get the best overall print price find out from your printer the grade and type of papers they stock. This will also allow for more schedule flexibility.

1. If you are looking for an attractive but inexpensive envelope check out flexoprinting and a web-style envelope. Flexo printing has come a long way from when it was called a rubber stamp. You can also produce half tones and solid coverage.
2. By letting the printer/converter have the appropriate amount of time to manufacture an order and allowing them to find the most efficient raw materials for your custom order is the best way to get aggressive pricing. The materials in the envelope process (paper, patch, cartons) represent on average 35% of the envelope cost. The cost can rise 10%-20% if forced to purchase inefficient materials.
3. If you are trying to create a 4 color envelope but have the budget for only 2 color, running 2 PMS colors on a jet press using a mix of screens and solids will provide a more diverse look than just two solid colors.
4. When running three PMS colors, it may be cost efficient to actually run 4CP as many printers discount the set up time running process vs. PMS colors.
5. Envelope converters will experience 1/16” variance in either direction when die cutting envelopes. Designers need to take that into account especially when their design involves colors that they do not want to bleed. Realizing the variance, a designer may choose to avoid designs where color stops at the fold of an envelope.
6. Many envelope converters have switched their traditional window high dies (metal die) to magnetic or flexible die systems. The flex dies are much less expensive making it easier than ever to create unique pistol, double and odd shaped windows designed to help get your envelope opened.
7. The “brown paper bag” envelope is a completely automatically insertable envelope that is manufactured on International Paper 24# Sand Kraft to give the appearance of a brown paper bag. This makes the inference “we’ve cut all corners to give you this special offer” very believable.

There are some questions that immediately confuse business owners. One of them is to ask what their costs are of acquiring new customers. It’s surprising to think that companies don’t know, but a number of businesses simply have no clue, much less where to start. A business could have a fantastic product, with huge growth and profit potential, but if the costs of finding new customers far exceeds the profit generated, then it’s a complete waste of time. In addition, it’s not just about knowing the cost, but about taking steps to reduce those costs. Why are so many companies unable to figure out the costs of getting new customers? More importantly, how does a company figure out these costs and what can be done to lower them? We’ll look at the how and why, and provide insight into how to reduce the cost of getting new customers.

How does a company figure out its cost of getting new customers?

When it comes to figuring out the cost of securing new customers, there really is only one way to figure it out. Better yet, there is only one method to both figure out the cost, and lower that cost. Marketing is the one and only source a company has to figure out its cost of new customers. In addition, marketing is the tool by which companies can use to lower costs, and improve their abilities to secure new customers, and win business. So, how does marketing help find new customers, explain the cost of finding those customers, and ultimately show the path to reducing those costs? Well, it’s all about how efficient a company’s marketing plans are, and how that company goes about tracking the performance of their plans. At the end of the day, the methods are pretty straightforward. It’s the application and follow through that some companies do better than others. It’s this follow through that distinguishes the best enterprises.

How does a company track its marketing initiatives?

There really isn’t any secret to tracking the results of a company’s marketing initiatives. It’s a simple calculation to figure out the cost of each new customer that arises from a marketing plan. For example, let’s assume that a company spent $2,500.00 on an advertising campaign and found that it resulted in the acquisition of 50 new customers. The cost per customer for this marketing initiative is simply $2,500.00 divided by 50 customers, or $50.00 a customer. Now, this is merely a simple example, and the analysis if far more involved than that. The company would then want to know how many customers actually ordered, and what the growth potential would be for those customers. However, the principles still apply. It’s merely taking the total spent on a marketing initiative, and then tracking the results of that initiative. For the above example, if the gross profit generated by the sale of the product was only $60.00, then the cost of this marketing initiative was perhaps not as good as it could be. So, changes would need to be made, and new marketing plans adopted. However, over time, those marketing plans could be modified to produce far better results. A company wanting to know the best and least expensive way to find new customers, would make it a point to track the results of their initiatives. In fact, this is how companies both increase their marketing effectiveness, and reduce their costs of acquiring new customers. Consider the following table below. It shows the different types of marketing initiatives a company may use, with the number of new customers resulting from each initiative, and their appropriate costs. The best companies constantly update and modify each new plan, finding new ways to both reduce costs, and improve results.

What’s the cheapest way to find new customers?

What’s the easiest and least expensive way to find new customers? Well, looking at the table above, it’s rather obvious that word of mouth advertising costs absolutely nothing and produces solid results. If you’ve ever wondered how well your business is doing servicing your existing customers, then take a look at the number of new customers your business secures through word of mouth advertising. If your business is doing a good job, has a solid market presence, and is number one in your customer’s eyes, then you’ll see the results of your efforts in the number of customer references your business receives. This is perhaps the single greatest endorsement of having a good sales and customer service team. If your business is servicing clients well, you’ll see the results.

Tracking the results of marketing initiatives is nowhere near as difficult as it might seem. The easiest way is to simply ask customers how they found your business, and make sure to track their answers accordingly. Other methods include tracking the number of inquiries through your company’s web-site or blog. It is incumbent upon businesses to track the performance of their marketing initiatives and set plans to both improve their performance, and lower their costs. Marketing is not black magic, and the results of marketing initiatives can help put your business in front of customers, and ahead of your competition. Being a strong market presence in the industry your business services, will help position your company for years to come.