Staying Competitive in the Teen Market
Production for the Caboodles line of bath and beauty products moved through design to launch in eight months Packaging offers some unique and cost-efficient solutions for maintaining successful sales to teens.
By Sally LaneTeens are brand-conscious consumers who wield enormous purchasing power. Market research shows that the group—estimated at 30 million strong—has money to burn. Teens aged 13 to 19 spent $9 billion on cosmetics in 1999, according to Teen Research Unlimited, a market research firm located outside Chicago. Industry experts project that sales of teenage beauty products will reach $10 billion in 2001.
Moreover, teens are more connected than ever to the marketplace and each other thanks to the Internet. Teens surf the Net not only to make purchases, but also to discuss their likes and dislikes—what's hot, what's not.
Manufacturers are taking note, including personal care and cosmetics companies that, in the past decade, have created entire lines just for teenagers. The challenge for companies in this highly competitive market is not only to capture the attention of teens, but also to keep it. To accomplish this, companies should remember that what is hip today could easily be square tomorrow. Thus, keeping packaging costs down while tapping into teen trends is one of the greatest challenges companies must continuously face.
What Packaging Can Do
Sometimes market success results from a company maintaining its bottom line and having a stroke of good luck along the way. For Jaqua Girls (Santa Barbara, CA), a cosmetics com-pany launched in 1997 by sisters Jennifer, Allison, and Sara Jaqua, it was simply a matter of economics that led them to package their beauty products in paint cans.
"We were looking for packaging at a packaging show in Anaheim, California, when we first started," says Jennifer Jaqua, director of product development for Jaqua Girls. "We were a fledgling company with no capital, and we needed [containers] we could order at a small minimum." Most packagers had a minimum order of 10,000 units," Jaqua says. The only company that offered the sisters small quantities was a paint-can company. So the Jaqua sisters spent $150 on their initial packaging investment. Today, their products are being sold in more than 2000 prestige department stores and gift shops in the United States and abroad.
Because the Jaqua sisters didn't need packaging that would hold liquid product, they made a deal with their supplier to purchase defective cans at a reduced cost. "It was a creative way for us to keep our overhead down and to relieve [our supplier] of some inventory they otherwise would have had to throw away," says Jaqua.
The success of the paint-can beauty kits has enabled Jaqua Girls to branch out. In June, the company plans to launch a line of cosmetics aimed specifically at teens. Jaqua Girls approached Osio International (West Covina, CA) to package their new cosmetics in foil-and-plastic bags traditionally used to hold such food products as beef jerky and raisins.
Paint cans paired with different labels provided cost-effective packaging for Colorlab Cosmetics lip gloss kits. The premade stand-up pouches feature a minigrip zipper with a perforated flange for easy opening and closing, according to Tom Traynor, vice president of Osio. The UV flexo-printed pressure-sensitive labels are printed at 175 line screen and applied to the pouches prior to fulfillment using automated pouch-labeling equipment. "The finished package will present consumers with [something] very appealing and more intimate than customary rigid packaging," Traynor says
Colorful graphics adorn only one side of the pouch, enabling teen consumers to see the contents of the package through its blank side. Allison Jaqua does all of the company's graphic design work. For ideas, Jennifer says, the sister team "looks at different teen magazines, designing graphics around what's happening and what's hot in the fashion market." For the teen market, she says, "the packaging has to be more unusual, a little less 'safe.'"
Giving Teen Buyers Credit
"Teens are savvy, educated consumers, and I think their intelligence as consumers has been underestimated," says Mari Roseman, director of marketing and public relations for Colorlab Cosmetics (Rockford, IL). For this reason, Roseman says, "we tend to give them a lot of information on our labeling."
Colorlab recently introduced two lip gloss kits for the teen market. One kit has a pink and purple label, the other a pink and beige one. The colors reflect the color scheme of the products inside the packaging. The six-piece kits, which are smaller than the company's traditional lip gloss kits, are being sold at a lower price point at boutiques nationwide. Both labels feature a funky design, Roseman says.
"I think you need something eye-catching that speaks to [teenagers]," adds Roseman. "A lot of cosmetics packaging that's sleek and sophisticated is aimed at adults. We wanted something really groovy and trendy that would draw teens in." To achieve this goal, Colorlab turned to the Medicine Man advertising agency (Rockford, IL), who designed the label.
Launched last November, the lip gloss kits come in one-quart paint cans with paper labels. This packaging approach is cost-effective, because the company can buy one can in bulk and vary the packaging by simply applying different labels. "It is really versatile for us to be able to interchange the labels and use just one can," Roseman says. And should the company decide to change the [look of the can] in the future, she explains, "it will be much easier to change a paper label than it will be [to change] something that's screened directly onto the can."
The Smell of Success
Sometimes packaging products for teens is a matter of improvising with what already exists. Often companies will choose stock packages and add their own touch using color and graphics.
SmellTHIS, owned by Five Star Fragrances (Deer Park, NY), took this approach when it was launched in 1997. At the time, CEO of smellTHIS James Berard felt the vast majority of fragrances marketed to teens were "very juvenile, and almost treated [the teenagers] as preteens." Adds Berard, "There was an opportunity, between the sophisticated department store lines and the preteen fragrances, to create a line that was fun, interesting, and relevant to the personality of an older teen."
The company moved forward with a frosted, cylindrical 1-oz stock bottle. "We liked the shape because it was simple and geometric," Berard says. But the real packaging feat, he says, are the folding cartons that were developed to house the bottles. Die-cut folding cartons wrapped in cellophane give the product an upscale look at a very reasonable cost, according to Berard. "We used a vacuum form insert, which gives a tight fit and holds the bottle in place so the [company] logo stays up front and visible," he says. The company logo is screened directly onto the bottle, as opposed to being applied on a paper label, so customers can see as much of the bottle as possible.
SmellTHIS also placed a scratch-and-sniff panel on each box, accommodating teenagers who like to sample products and experience a product before buying. "The scratch-n-sniff labels are less expensive than testers, and they ensure that every product has the [capacity] to communicate what the fragrance is," Berard says. The bottle features a clear polypropylene cap that allows consumers to see the actuator, which is tinted to match the color of the fragrance.
Noting that product portability is another big selling point in the teen market, smellTHIS recently introduced a half-ounce flip-top package featuring a PET bottle, a tinted pump actuator, and a natural polypropylene flip-cap. The bottle has no secondary packaging, and instead comes with a three-color-printed label with a matte film lamination on the front and a Mylar two-color matte lamination on the back. The labels are supplied by Paris Art Label (Ronkonkoma, NY).
Mark Gaelen, president of cosmetic component supplier O. Berk Co. (Union, NJ), agrees that portability and convenience are important to teens. Consequently, packaging for the teen market is often designed to be on the smaller side, as well as unbreakable. "The major challenge is finding a stock package that looks unique or that can be made to look unique by the proper dispensing closure or graphics," Gaelen says. "Because it's a trendy market, you have to be able to [adapt] quickly."
Starting from Scratch
When Caboodles (Plano, IL) decided to launch a line of seven bath and beauty products, it wanted to create a whole-shelf presentation that would market the various products in the line—shampoos, body lotions, and so forth—together. To achieve its goal, Caboodles approached the Expac Corp. (Montvale, NJ).
Simple geometric shapes and a striking logo create a sophisticated appearance for the smellTHIS fragrance bottles. "[Caboodles] wanted to create the packaging from scratch," says Expac president Kevin Kearsey. The company needed not only to create packaging with a fresh, funky look that would attract teens, but also to do it quickly. "From initial discussion to market launch, [the process took] eight months," says Kearsey. Once the seven package designs were chosen, the molds took only six weeks to build. The packages were created out of PETG, PET, PVC, and OPET in six proprietary molds and one stock mold."The bottles are all clear, and the bright colors of the product show through [the packaging]," Kearsey says. "We matched all the closures and the pumps to the bright, transluscent colors of the products, so the packaging is very attractive."
One of the issues addressed during package development was compatibility between the chemical composition of each of the various products and the container material. For example, Expac recommended that a pinch-wave bottle intended to house an alcohol-based product be molded in PETG. Once the bottle was in production, Expac made an adjustment to the gram weight to maintain design integrity and eliminate material bunching in the bottle's waist.
Invent, Reinvent
Teens tend to spend according to the trends. The personal care and cosmetic companies that can spot these trends and then invent and reinvent packaging to reflect them are the companies most likely to succeed in this highly competitive, ever-changing market.