When Danone was looking to add a new variety to its yoghurt range, it realised it needed more than a single point of difference to stand out, not only from its own extensive product line, but also from the scores of competitors in what is a crowded retail category.
In terms of the product itself, the company felt it had a truly standout selling point in the latest addition to its Activia brand – the new variety was designed as a pouring yoghurt, formulated to be thinner than conventional yoghurts to make it easier for consumers to use it with their breakfast cereals.
The company wanted to underline this point of difference, however, by extending the innovation to the packaging of the product, and decided to give structural packaging and branding designers an opportunity to test a whole new pack format in the category.
It tasked Cryovac Australia and Outerspace Design Group to collaborate on the new Danone Activia Pouring yoghurt container, asking the two to work together to make the “tub look more like a jug”.
Director of structural packaging at Outerspace Design Michael Grima says the properties of the new yoghurt very much lent itself to using a totally new packaging format for the category.
He explains that since the product’s viscosity allowed easy pouring, the designers were able to consider indent features for improved grip and an incorporated spout or curved feature to facilitate directional pouring.
After submitting initial designs to the client, Danone indicated it liked the side grip features. Cryovac, for its part, indicated it felt it would be beneficial to incorporate a hinged lid to improve convenience. The two then worked to a tight three-month timeline to have the new pack ready for the trade launch deadline.
Outerspace’s pack team collaborated with not only Cryovac’s team in Australia but also the manufacturing plant in Malaysia that would ultimately produce the tub.
The process involved a number of tweaks being added to the intial concept.
The grip indent, for example, was adjusted to better suit the full body in mould label (IML) wrap process, and rapid hand-made mock-ups of the pack were explored to validate a narrow opening hinged lid.
“With little time, the lid pilot tool was made concurrently with production to confirm correct functioning of the break away and hinged portion of the lid,” Grima says.
The designers also worked to ensure the pack fit manufacturing and retail chain requirements.
“Not only did the design have to meet the needs of the consumer in its performance but also had to be designed to enable efficient manufacturing and inverted de-nesting on the filling line,” he says.
The final design is an injection-moulded polypropylene pack incorporating lithographically printed, clear stock, non-cavitated polypropylene IML that navigates its way across the indented body of the tub and completes a full wrap, neatly seaming under the elongated spout.
This indent doubles as a “humanised” measuring aid reminding the consumer when to “add to the shopping list”.
The lid incorporates an integral narrow hinge with a localized flat IML. Small break away features on the hinged portion of the lid serve both as tamper evidence and to control integrity of the part from moulding to lidding and then into the consumer’s home.
