Market-Driven Innovations

Backpack-friendly lunch kit adds choice for active lifestyles. Multiple decorative effects say 'forever' on perfume packaging.

arket-Driven Innovations comes to you in cooperation with Productscan® Online, an online, new-product tracking service from Marketing Intelligence Service Ltd., Naples, N.Y.

Available at www.productscan.com, the service is a comprehensive online database of new products. It has detailed information on more than 500,000 new product SKUs from 1980 to the present. It offers an in-depth look at new products with its Innovation Ratings. The service is updated six times a month with new information.

ERASER-LIKE CLEANING PADS MEAN NO PRODUCT TO DISCARD

Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, from Procter & Gamble Co., leaves nothing to throw away. Two pads in each carton clean dirt and grime.

Consumers can use them repeatedly until they wear away, just like an eraser.

A moon-shaped die-cut provides a window on the package's front panel. It offers a view of the pads inside the carton. Rich graphics of the brand's Mr. Clean animated character and a star-studded white swoosh against a blue background communicate the pads' cleaning capabilities.

Package copy states that the "Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is an innovative cleaning material and thoroughly breaks up tough dirt, lifting it away from surfaces. And it does all this with just water alone," without producing fumes.

Each pad measures 4.5 inches by 2.4 inches by 1 inch.

Suggested retail price is $1.88 for a two-pack.

CANISTER FUNCTIONS AS CO-BRANDING BILLBOARD

The on-the-go-lifestyle packaging trend continues with Norwegian Jake's BackPack Lunch from Norwegian Jake's Mountain Food and Gear, Warren, Mich.

Color and graphics give this package a rugged "feel," and the canister represents one approach for answering consumers' escalating call for active-lifestyle packaging across categories: It's backpack-friendly.

Package copy says, "A nutritious, balanced meal for active lifestyles!" The turkey variety comes in a shrink-wrapped canister with a suggested retail price of $3.99.

The canister offers Norwegian Jake's opportunities for co-branding. Inside the canister, two gourmet-quality, low-sodium, low-saturated-fat Norwegian Jake's Scandinavian Flatbread Wraps come
with a 2.5-ounce package of 93 percent fat-free Carl Buddig Original Oven Roasted Turkey.

Other meal "ingredients" are a low-fat Norwegian Jake's Dairyland String Cheese Stick, a Stretch Island fruit snack, a Minute Maid juice drink, a Mars Musketeers candy bar, mayonnaise and mustard packs, a napkin and a hand wipe.

TACTILE CARTON, DECORATIVE EFFECTS SPICE UP PERFUME'S 'MYSTERY'

Selah Women's Fragrance, from Selah Parfums Jerusalem, is a brand that trades on the word Selah, which in Hebrew means "forever." The perfume blends essential oils and spices derived from fragrant powders uncovered alongside the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Both the carton and the bottle turn up the sophistication in marketing the product's pedigree.

The plastic carton exhibits a tactile surface, and shades of earth tones resemble sponge-painting that complements gold-foil text on the front panel. The embossed Selah name over a frosted window mirrors the bottle's shape and lends an aura of mystery to the brand.

Inside the carton, a deep azure blue pump bottle features smooth lines and a raised festoon overlay.

All these components give the packaging a resemblance to a "first-century perfume flacon found in the deserts of Judea," promotional copy says.

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