Packaging Digest

Perimeter Brand Packaging has announced the completion of qualitative and quantitative research with 10,000 consumers over the past 12 months, including one hundred hours of one-on-one insight sessions with consumers. Perimeter, an Open Innovation partner to Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies, has built a business model and innovation process that leverages consumer insights to create market-ready packaging solutions for CPG companies. 

Steve Callahan, president of Perimeter Brand Packaging, announced the launch of his firm's Consumer Insights team last year, saying, "We know that staying connected to the consumer is absolutely critical to our ongoing success. Our packaging product pipeline is driven by consistently engaging with consumers and learning from them."

Perimeter delivers packaging solutions that are validated by consumers for their impact on in-store purchase intent and at-home usability. Perimeter currently has a portfolio of products covering three packaging platforms: Easy Dosing and Dispensing, Maintaining Freshness and On the Go.

"We will never know as much as a CPG brand manager about his or her product category," says Callahan. "But we come to the table with market-ready solutions that have been vetted by consumers." 

The Consumer Insights team at Perimeter customizes the research process for each potential CPG product innovation. 

"We assess the market need, product design and usability," says Christian Lavoie, senior consumer insights manager. "Our research process stretches from broad market need down to prototyping and in-home usage tests. Finding a better way, while mapping to existing consumer behavior, is our primary focus in developing new packaging solutions."

Lavoie, a 20 year market research veteran, is tracking numerous trends based on his research this year that will guide future product development and additional research at Perimeter. The one-on-one consumer sessions studied purchase intent before and after product usage. This data was analyzed along with extensive quantitative work completed in conjunction with ORC International, and other global market research firms. 

"Our research work focuses on a wide range of categories, including household, food and beverage, pet, and personal care," says Lavoie. 

Several common themes he points to for successful new CPG packaging solutions are: 

Intuitive
Innovative packaging needs to strike a balance between being different so that consumers notice, but intuitive enough that consumers can immediately figure out how to use it.

"Consumers are highly skeptical of a new package design that they can't immediately figure out how to use," he says.

Easy
Consumers appreciate packaging innovations that take away steps to use the product. For example, on-the-go packaging that eliminates the need to transfer product to a smaller container is often well received.

Familiar
Consumers are creatures of habit. If a new packaging solution has a familiar aspect, potential users will gravitate to it. 

For more information on Perimeter's research findings, visit www.perimeterbp.com; to go directly to the study PDF document, visit
http://www.perimeterbp.com/sites/default/files/press/ConsumerInsightsDrivesPackagingatPerimeter.pdf
.