Sampling & Unit Dosing: Getting In Shape
Back to Basics chose two different tube-shaped packettes to help customers differentiate between two retail tubes.
With new custom shapes and sizes, sample packages are in fine form.
by Jennifer Kwok, Managing EditorProduct samples help marketers give consumers something they want—a chance to try a product before committing to buying it. Nowadays, marketers are catering even more to consumers by customizing sample packages so they appeal to the target audience. From packettes to ampules and vials, sample packages across the board are being updated with new shapes that not only market well but that are functional too.
Profiling Packettes
In the area of packettes, die-cut custom shapes are in high demand. Customers like die-cut packettes because they are a departure from standard rectangular shapes. Marketers especially like packettes that simulate the shape of a retail package because they help customers make a connection between the sample and the package on the retail shelf.
“When a customer gets a sample and it looks exactly like the actual retail bottle, it helps them to easily differentiate the retail package in stores,” says Margery Woodin, vice president of marketing and sales for supplier Identipak.
Die-cut packettes don’t necessarily have to cost a lot more than standard packettes. Mostly, it depends on how well equipped a supplier’s facilities are for producing die-cut packages.
Katie Tenpas is the marketing coordinator for Glenroy, which creates and prints films that are later formed into packettes. She says, “Die-cut sample packages can be more expensive for a few reasons. Die-cutting produces more packaging film scrap. Also, die-cut samples take longer to cycle through the filling machine.”
Because die-cutting is Identipak’s forte, Woodin says that the firm’s custom tooling is very affordable. “When we started the company, we designed our equipment and tooling to be affordable, even for small companies,” she says. “And even if the price difference between a standard packette and a die-cut packette is as much as 7%, the difference gained in brand identity is huge.”
Woodin says that one of Identipak’s most requested packette shapes is the tube. Back to Basics, a Graham Webb brand, asked Identipak to create two different tube-shaped packettes for styling products from its brand-new Curl Refreshing Collection and Bamboo Straightening Collection. Both lines launched in May.
Because the two styling products have differently shaped retail tubes, Back to Basics chose two different tube shapes for the packettes. Lisa O’Connor, the executive director of marketing for Back to Basics, says that the two packettes will help customers, as well as salon employees, tell the difference between the two new products. “Because we were launching more than one product in a purple tube, we were concerned that people would confuse the two. So we wanted to be sure that we didn’t just use one packette shape for both products,” she says. “One of the retail tubes is tall and slender, and the other tube is short and squat. When you see the packettes, that’s how they look.”
Customized Containers
Other sample-sized containers are also being customized with accessories and structures that reinforce a brand’s identity and that help customers connect with a brand.
A heart-shaped accessory and a wick applicator make the Love At First Glow by J.Lo sampler perfect for its customers.
Supplier Sampling Dimensions did a lot of custom tooling on its upscale Sampling Stix package for the Love At First Glow by J.Lo fragrance, which launched in January.
Sampling Stix is a sample-sized vial with an applicator attached to its cap. The package has been popular for lip gloss and mascara, but it had never been used for a fragrance prior to Love At First Glow. To make Sampling Stix suitable for fragrance, Sampling Dimensions added a wick applicator that is similar to the tip of a felt-tip pen so that customers could dab on fragrance.
Notably, Sampling Dimensions further customized the vial by tooling a heart-shaped accessory on its cap that is sure to appeal to the fragrance’s key audience. “Something as simple as minor tooling can make our existing packages different,” says Debra Clarke, sales and marketing associate for Sampling Dimensions.
Clinical-looking sample tubes and a syringe pouch helped Remergent convey a medical image to its customers.
Supplier Sampling Dimensions did a lot of custom tooling on its upscale Sampling Stix package for the Love At First Glow by J.Lo fragrance, which launched in January.
Companies with clinical-looking packages are also finding ways to customize sample packaging structures in ways that will appeal to their customers. Skin care brand Remergent recently asked supplier LF of America to supply its unit-dose tubes in a custom format for a promotional kit that the firm mailed to dermatologists at the end of February. Five 2-ml tubes were connected in a strip. Each tube contains a different product.
Fred Carr, president of the Remergent brand, says that the medical-looking packages and the five-tube format suited the brand. “The unit-dose tubes are perfect for our company,” says Carr. “The company is based on science, and even though these are cosmetic products, we want to keep a medical image. Also, the strip format allowed us to showcase a lot of our products at once.”
To further convey the medical image, the tubes were packaged in an outer pouch typically used to house syringes.
Ignacio Lopez, business development manager for LF of America, says, “The tubes themselves were standard, but the way Remergent put the packaging together was new.”
Other suppliers are also working to enhance their custom tooling capabilities. Supplier Unicep Packaging, which blow molds most of its sample packages, recently invested in a new thermoform-fill machine. This machine is used to create Unicep’s VersaPak sample packages, which can be shaped like a brand’s retail package. Frank Kallio, marketing coordinator for Unicep, says that compared to blow molding, thermoforming is often a more efficient way of creating custom package shapes.
Shrinking Samples
A smaller version of Xela Pack’s Stand-Up PaperBottle was ideal for skin care brand Essensa.
To meet marketers’ demands, many suppliers are launching even smaller versions of their already tiny sample packages.
A lot of the new demand for smaller-sized sample packages comes from the cosmeceutical industry, according to Anthony Gentile, director of art and marketing for Xela Pack. Because many cosmeceutical products are expensive, cosmeceutical companies often choose to provide just enough product for a consumer to get a good sampling of a product—but not enough to be wasteful.
Xela Pack recently launched a smaller, 5-ml version of its Stand-Up PaperBottle sample package. The Stand-Up PaperBottle is popular with high-end beauty companies because its base allows the package to sit upright for an upscale feeling.
High-end skin care brand Essensa was the first to use the 5-ml Stand-Up PaperBottle for its Provence Active Organics product line. Gabrielle Johnson, director of sales and education for Regent Bond (the parent company of the Essensa line), says that she liked the PaperBottle’s upscale look.
Supplier James Alexander has also launched a smaller-sized version of its sample packaging. The company recently introduced a shorter version of its 5-ml plastic ampule package. “The more-compact version of the 5-ml plastic ampule makes perfect sense for those applications for which customers require a fill volume that is between our standard 2- and 5-ml sizes,” says Francesca Fazzolari, the firm’s president and CEO.