Section 4.2: Brand Building

Consumers know glass packaging helps ensure wholesomeness, purity, quality and taste of food and beverages. Consumers choose glass for its endless sustainability. It's packaging they feel good about. That's why glass packaging makes it easy to capitalize on the top trends influencing consumers today and in the future.

Trends in the food and beverage market:

• Young adults with more discretionary funds
• More products targeted at women
• Emerging psychographic categories such as "foodies", "style-centric", "organics", and "socially-aware soccer moms"
• Increased awareness of "what we put in our bodies"

The result: the glass container industry has been reaching out to a more discerning audience by designing packaging that reflects an upscale attitude. These trends are reflected in the values of glass and thus the building of any brand.

Choosing Glass for Health and Wellness

Health and Wellness Concerns Gain Momentum:

• Consumers are looking to food and drinks to help them improve and maintain their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing
• Products perceived as being "better-for-me", "good-for-me", or that can help consumers reach fitness goals, through either added or natural nutrition, will be increasingly sought out
• With an increase in scientific studies of body-accumulated toxins, there are rising concerns about certain plastics leaching chemicals into consumables

Health Conscious Consumers Turn to Glass Packaging:

• Composed of all-natural raw materials, glass is a safe and healthy choice for food and beverage brands because it is chemically inert, meaning it doesn't interact with the products it houses, so it does not require a protective coating
• Glass is one of the safest, healthiest packaging materials available, a fact recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which has categorized glass as the only packaging material "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS)
• Glass packaging has the ability to meet even the most stringent requirements from pharmaceuticals to food
• Glass' impervious nature also makes it difficult to tamper with the package contents, thereby protecting the product and preserving its shelf life
• These protective properties can be enhanced by choosing amber or green glass to prevent UV rays from passing through the package and affecting its contents.

Choosing Glass for Convenience

Winning in the marketplace means being able to deliver products where, when and how consumers want them.

Consumers today increasingly have to manage competing demands on their time. In packaging that means a need for convenient food and beverage products that can help consumers facilitate already crammed lifestyles while fulfilling their desires to maximize leisure hours.

Packaging plays a key role in addressing these product needs:

• Ready to eat/heat foods
• Portable and mini-meals
• Easy packaging
• Feel-good packaging

Marketers Rely on Glass Packaging to Deliver Consumer Convenience

• Microwavable convenience (for many glass jars)
  Many glass jars offer in-package microwave convenience with no need to transfer product to another container - and without the leaching concerns of plastics.

• Ease in resealing
  Glass is easy to reseal. Unlike cans, there is no need to move the product to another container after opening. Just twist the lid or replace the stopper and put away. Unlike zip top plastic bags that only work a few times, glass can be opened and resealed over and over.
• Ability to maintain product freshness and aroma
  
• Flexible design
  Glass packaging is flexible, offering designs for at-home and on-the-go use. From highly functional jars to new ergonomic bottles, no other packaging material offers the versatility or shelf appeal of glass.
• Extreme portability
  Through a process called "lightweighting", glass containers now can be made less heavy and, unlike light-weighted plastics and aluminum, without sacrificing strength or performance. And, glass keeps refrigerated products colder, longer. Combined, these make glass ideal for on-the-go applications that also require durability.
• Reusable
  Glass lends itself to creative embellishment through the use of stock or custom molds and can be labeled, colored, silk screened, enameled, etched, sand blasted, or coated. Glass is so enduring and useful that well-designed glass packaging often holds consumer value even after the product is used.

Choosing Glass for Premium Appeal

Consumers are naturally attracted to products that offer more pleasure, sensation, and intensity. Consumers will instinctively "trade up" through the consumption of perceived premium products. This trend is fueled in part by:

• Rising incomes
• Increased international travel
• Increased media exposure of celebrity lifestyles

Additionally, over-stressed consumers want to indulge in affordable luxuries and seek ways to reward themselves. These consumers may save in "basic" categories in order to splurge in desired categories, including food and beverages.

This trend is important to manufacturers because:

• Premium consumers are price insensitiveImproved image can "bump up" other products in the same brand family
• The luxury niche has fewer competitors

Packaging can magnify and/or create a premium image. Packaging is an important factor in adding traits of authenticity, trendiness, and prestige to a brand.

For Example:

• Water
• Honey
• Milk
• Fruits and Vegetables
• Vinegar and Olive Oil
• Spirits

Modern consumers suffer from "choice fatigue." The product manager's challenge is to differentiate premium products not only from premium competition, but also from non-premium competition in the same product family. Two established trends spell out the solution for any brand manager:

• 75% of US consumers believe glass packaging creates an image of prestige and premium branding for non-alcoholic beverages. [Source: Datamonitor, January 2007]
• 70% of purchase decisions are made at the point of purchase [Source: Point of Purchase Advertising Institute]

Glass connotes the quality image manufacturers are looking for:

• Communicating a high-touch, premium-quality feel that goes hand in hand with their products
• Functionally, glass does not interact chemically with products, so purity is assured
• Glass protects product taste, aroma and freshness by providing an impermeable barrier to oxygen and moisture and by keeping products that need to be refrigerated colder, longer when removed
• Truly, glass delivers both form and function

Glass containers are the ideal choice for packaging that is elegant looking but also to protect delicate flavors and defend against oxidation:

Packaging for a premium item must convey the product's quality, support premium pricing and distinguish the product from competitive offerings
At the same time, the package must protect product integrity and shelf life
It's no wonder premium products are showcased in glass

Glass stimulates consumer interest and delivers these important benefits:

• Gourmet, high-quality, elegant product identity
• Increased visibility and shelf impact
• Ability to act as decoration
• Flexibility in size, shape, and closure
• Sensory appeal

Choosing Glass for Customization

Glass is one of the most flexible and customizable packaging options and one of the most appealing across all demographics because consumers often use packaging to identify the positioning of a product and to determine whether it is right for them.

Today's consumers use consumption as a means of self-expression. They seek out more personal and customized brand experiences and are often willing to pay a little more for products that fulfill this need. Offering products that recognize individual preferences is key. With glass marketers will be able to prevent their products from drifting into commodity status and avoid unwanted discounting.

Thanks to modern glass packaging manufacturing techniques, glass packaging is a prefect combination of form and function:

• Today, glass packaging is up to 40% lighter than it was just 20 years ago, and considerably stronger, that makes it more versatile than ever before

• It can be shaped, etched, enameled, colored and decorated in an almost infinite number of ways to appeal to key segments with appealing and user-friendly designs

Packaging is Identity:

Putting some thought into packaging will set a product apart from the SKU clutter on store shelves and create a solid brand identity.

Choosing Glass for Sustainability and Social Responsibility

Without environmentally responsible packaging, environmentally responsible products are only half complete.

Environmentalism and the move toward sustainability are becoming meaningful drivers of consumer purchasing behavior. Consumers embracing these causes are attractive to business for a variety of reasons, including brand loyalty, their influence over others, and a willingness to pay more for products, which they perceive to be earth friendly.

Packaging must be consistent with key brand messages that leave glass as the natural choice for both its recyclability and reusability:

Glass is Sustainable

• Glass is made of abundant raw materials and is as natural as the products it contains
• If left alone glass will return to its natural elements having zero impact on the planet
• Glass is also endlessly recyclable and, even after continual recycling, never loses its quality, purity or clarity

When it comes to sustainable packaging, glass is the best choice for socially-responsible manufacturers and their customers.

Glass Delivers Impact

Glass delivers significant shelf "impact" which can be enhanced by creative shapes and decorative treatments. Impact may entice a consumer into a purchase when:

• Consumers can see inside the package to view the high quality of the product
• The shape appeals to the eye and the feel of the glass appeals to the consumer's tactical senses

In a highly competitive market place only glass provides such a wide spectrum of options to help manufacturers differentiate their products from the crowd.

Glass Protects

• Because glass is inert and impermeable, the flavor of the product is preserved by, rather than affected by the packaging.
• Glass can achieve a hermetic seal to prolong product shelf life.

These attributes are imperative when consumers pay a premium for ethically grown and organic products. The naturally expect the contents to be fresh, flavorful and wholesome and for the packaging to reflect the greenness and wholesomeness of the product itself.

continue to Section 4.3: Design Innovations