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Hello 2011!!!

I am back from beautiful Mexico and am happy to report that I have beaten my addiction to Chap Stick; all it took was some fun in the Mexican sun. Hurray!

Dordan started off 2011 with a bang, thanks to the January 3rd print addition of the lovely PlasticsNews.

For starters, lil ole’ me was quoted several times (10 in fact!) in regard to my presentation at Sustainable Plastics Packaging, as reported in Mike Verespej’s “Container Recycling Effort Remains Daunting.” To read the piece in all its glory, click here.

THEN, Dordan was given an entire half-page spread in the special report “Plastics and Packaging,” where reporter Dan Hockensmith summarizes our interview during Pack Expo 2010. They include a picture and everything! It is the most Dordan-centric editorial we have received thus far, so we are thrilled! Click here for the full article.

Thanks PlasticsNews!!!

Next week's post will provide the second portion of my feedback from Sustainable Plastic Packaging and begin discussing the Walmart SVN that I attended December 14th. Sorry, trying to play catch up!

Hey! For those of you that have your toes in B2B marketing, check out all the tools available for download here. I found the "helpful documentation" to be super helpful when trying to design an integrated marketing campaign…

So this is random but we have suspended composting Dordan’s food and yard waste for the winter because it seems as though the microorganisms are hibernating! As it stands, it looks more like a pile of stuff than a home-grown pile of compost! C’est le vie!

I will keep you updated on Dordan’s social and environmental sustainability efforts as they unfold and progress into 2011, but in the mean time, feel free to peruse the partially complete description of our goals here.

Okkkk so where were we? That’s right, SPP feedback.

After I drank a celebratory beer following my presentation, I returned to the conference, where Scott Steele of Plastics Technologies explained how reducing packaging may not always be the best approach to cost savings/sustainability. He spoke specifically of the dramatic material reductions in the PET bottle, which anyone can tell you have been down gauged to the extreme; just ask my 95 year-old grandmother! His argument was actually very powerful because he explained that if you reduce the material consumed per package as an attempt of saving green, then due diligence must be taken throughout the production and distribution supply chain in order to ensure no damage to the product (or anything else) arises from this packaging reduction. I know this is a little crazy but he even referenced a store clerk dying, heaven forbid, because the bottles had been down-gauged to the point that they could not support the top load of the skid, which all came crashing down after the PE shrink wrap was removed…yikes!

By the by, all the presentations are available for download here.

The last presentation of the day was JoAnne Hines, the “Packaging Diva,” who discussed the Sun Chip compostable bad “situation.” I had heard bits and pieces about the Packaging Diva over the year so I was thrilled to see her in the flesh! She was a very comfortable public speaker and I enjoyed her sarcasm! Basically she discussed the Sun Chips compostable bag innovation/market flop, and what that says about the intersection between sustainability/packaging/consumer preferences. For those of you unfamiliar, the Sun Chip compostable bag, launched on Earth Day in 2010 (I think) by Frito-Lay, resulted in declining sales across all chip style categories because consumers complained that the compostable bag was “too noisy.” Just youtube Sun Chips compostable bag and you will be overwhelmed with the negative feedback generated via consumers/social networking sites.

All in all, a good presentation and a favorable one to end the day on!

The second day of the conference began with a presentation from an Industrial Designer from Brandimage—Desgrippes & Laga. He was charming and had a very good on-stage presence. However, being a designer, his assumptions about what is “green” were more so based on generic understandings then sound science. Perhaps a discussion of one of his companies’ new concepts will speak to this point…

Brandimage has created a molded pulp water bottle that has a plastic laminate inside the bottle, to keep the liquid from leaching through the paper. From a design standpoint, it looks pretty cool, because the bottles actually lay flat throughout production and it is not until you force water inside that its shape takes form. However, as an attempt to be more “sustainable” than the classic PET bottles, there are many problems. For instance, the weight of a molded pulp water bottle filled would dramatically exceed the weight of the down gauged PET bottles of today’s market; therefore, the energy required to move the bottles from the point of production through distribution would exceed that of PET bottles. Next, because of the plastic laminate on the inside of the bottle, these disposable containers (I don’t see how they could be resused…) can’t be recycled. Because NAPCOR and others have invested a considerable amount in the development of the PET recycling infrastructure (PET bottles are the highest recycled plastic container in North America), it doesn’t make sense to introduce an alternative material into the bottle market. In other words, because the recovery infrastructure already exists for PET bottles, but doesn’t for laminated paper products, it does not make sense to replace PET bottles with molded pulp ones in the context of end-of-life management.

After he presented I told him that I thought he did a great job, but that his molded pulp bottle concept was really silly. He was a good sport about it!

OK, I know I have a lot more updates to rally to you all, but I leave for Mexico tomorrow for VACATION!!!!! Therefore, I wanted to leave you with something a little more…something.

First, watch “The Future of Food;” it will blow your mind.

Next, visit The Cosmetic Database and search by product brand i.e. Burts Bees, or product type i.e. mascara. You will be shocked!

Then, read “Poorly Made in China."

And lastly, read this Chicago Tribue article.

If you do so in that order, you will feel as though I did last week—terrible terrible terrible! I am not trying to be a weirdo but being a sustainability coordinator for a plastic packaging company allows you to make arguments for business practices in the context of ethics; be it workers rights, the environment, whatever. That being said, when I come across things like “The Future of Food” and a database for cosmetics that details all the terrible things in the products we consume each day AND then find out that the water I have been drinking for the last 5 years has cancer causing agents in it you begin to wonder about this whole sustainability jazz. Trust me, I am genuinely a die-hard environmentalist; I have always been and will always continue to be so. However, while I truly enjoy working towards a more sustainable packaging industry, I find myself struggling with the following ethical conundrum: if the products that we are packaging in our “sustainable material” are themselves harmful (cosmetics, food, etc.) to the person consuming them, the environment, and the social fabric in which it was produced and distributed, then why so much hype on the sustainability of a package? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about how products themselves are manufactured i.e. what goes into them and what comes out, then how in reducing a package by X amount, you get more product per pallet, cheaper shipping, and so on?!?

I’m sorry—I swear—I am never a Debby downer but for some reason this whole dealio is really bothering me. I am meeting with my old ethics professor the third week of January so hopefully he can help set me straight…

Let us end our sort of depressing post with the following even more depressing post from Enviroblog, which details the worst environmental disasters of 2010. Happy New Year! Ha.

Cheers!

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here's a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Greetings!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! I know I was working at Dordan this time last year but boy howdy do I feel extra unmotivated this time around! I have even put off blogging—one of my favorite work past times—because I just don’t feel like it. Hopefully I will resume my normal workhorse-ness after the New Year…

In my time-killing attempts this morning, I came across the Pack Expo Report, which is basically a summary of all the happenings of this enormous event. While flipping through its contents, I was delighted to discover that Dordan got a shout out! Check it our here on page 16 and 17. They even include our comparative spec sheet from our Bio Resin Show N Tell! Neato!

I know I promised you all some SPP and Walmart SVN feedback, so here it goes:

Sustainable Plastics Packaging 2010, Crain Communications, December 8th and 9th, Atlanta

I arrived at the hotel that was hosting the conference early so I could work on my presentation and meet with the IT gentleman to make sure everything worked correctly. That night I met with three reporters from Crain, all of whom were very nice! I didn’t know this at the time but Crain Communications houses all these fine publications:

• Advertising Age
• American Coin-Op
• American Drycleaner
• American Laundry News
• Automobilwoche
• Automotive News
• AutoWeek
• Business Insurance
• BtoB
• Crain's Chicago Business
• Crain's Cleveland Business
• Crain's Detroit Business
• Crain's New York Business
• Creativity
• European Plastics News
• European Rubber Journal
• InvestmentNews
• Media Business
• Modern Healthcare
• Modern Physician
• Pensions & Investments
• Plastics News
• Plastics News China
• Plastics & Rubber Weekly
• Rubber & Plastics News
• Staffing Industry Analysts
• TelevisionWeek
• Tire Business
• Urethanes Technology International
• Waste & Recycling News
• Workforce Management

CRAZY!

Anyway, one of the gentlemen I met with, who was in charge of the conference itself, was one of the founders of PlasticsNews in the early eighties! So let’s just say, these guys know a thing or two about a thing or two as it pertains to plastic and packaging!

After I ran through my presentation and made the necessary tweaks (I got the presentation down from 80 slides to 62, simplified my language, etc.), I was off to bed to prepare for a very busy and thought-provoking day!

The first presentation on the 8th was Suzanne Shelton’s (SHELTON GROUP) “Challenging the Perception that Plastic is Bad."

What was cool about this presentation, aside from the fact that it drove home the point that people like buying products that are “environmentally friendly” yet don’t really know what that means, was that it showed live footage of consumers talking about packaging. Imagine a round table where a handful of “normal” consumers are asked questions about plastic packaging and the environment and then the fun that is their responses. Good times! What I took away from this presentation is that depending on your product category (dairy, electronics, detergent, etc.), certain sustainability attributes—be it “made with recycled content” or “biodegradable” or “no GMOs”—provoke consumers’ willingness to buy when compared with products that have no environmental marketing claims. What is important to remember, Shelton emphasized, is that preferences for environmental attributes change between product category groups; therefore, when designing new product packaging, marketers should be familiar with what environmental buzz words consumers identify with within their product category.

Next, Aaron Brody of Packaging/Brody Inc. presented on “Packaging Role in the World Food Crisis.” Because I was busy rehearsing my presentation in my mind, I didn’t get all I should have out of this presentation, which I heard was really good! All I really remember is that Brody made an argument that the global production and distribution of food stuff was much more sustainable than locally sourced food stuff… check out the presentation here for more information.

I missed the next several presentations because I went to my room to present again and again and again to make sure I had it down. Nothing like being over prepared!

And then I presented. And it was really fun! And I think the crowd was engaged…at least as engaged as you can be when discussing recycling!

After I presented, the previous two presenters and myself came on stage for a “panel discussion.” And guess what: most if not ALL of the questions were directed at me! I think this means that the content was interesting and thought provoking. I felt as though I was playing professor, which is super awesome, being that I wanted to be one! I was really glad too because no one asked me a question I could not answer…there was a Chinese woman in the crowd who I may have offended in my discussion of shipping the majority of our post consumer plastic to Asia due to the extremely low cost of manual separation compared with the high cost of automated sorting technologies in North America…

AND even more exciting, after my presentation, this gentleman from NURRC approached me and invited me to tour his plant! Apparently NURRC is a joint venture with Coca Cola that recycles ALL PET; bottles AND thermoforms. He said that they have no problem sorting the PET thermoforms from those destined for landfill via their sorting technology and that he would love to host me at their plant. AWESOME. Check out their website here.

WOWZA—in all my procrastinating it’s time for me to go! I will continue this post tomorrow!

As the work day now officially comes to a close, I wanted to wish you all, my packaging and sustainability friends, Merry Merry Christmas!!!! I wish you all a very happy Holiday full of Christmas cheer. Safe travels everyone! We will resume our conversation on Monday!

Xoxo,

Chandler

Wow I knew I hadn’t posted in a bit but almost 10 days YIKES!

Before I delve into the intricacies of the SPP and Walmart SVN updates, I wanted to share with you some random articles I have come across over the last two weeks. This may be old news to you, my packaging and sustainability friends, but nonetheless, I wanted to post it to my blog for future reference.

First, check out this article from PlasticsNews published November 8th:

China issues rules for importing whole PET scrap bottles

By Steve Toloken | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF

Posted November 8, 2010

NINGBO, CHINA (Nov. 8, 2 p.m. ET) -- The Chinese government has issued long-awaited rules detailing how companies can import whole PET scrap bottles.

The rules, issued in October and discussed by government officials and companies at a Nov. 4 conference in Ningbo, Zhejiang province, have been closely watched globally, as China is the world’s largest importer of scrap plastics.

China had previously allowed only imports of recycled PET that had already been ground or processed in some way, because government officials said they were concerned about the country in effect importing materials that were not clean and polluted the country.

But with China’s huge demands for new sources of raw materials, particularly in its polyester fiber manufacturing industry, officials had said last year they planned to relax the rules.

The new rules place some limits on who can bring in the material: they require that importers have existing facilities and a current license to import recycled plastic, that they be located in a district designated for recycling and have imported at least 10,000 metric tons of material in each of the last three years.

For companies outside those existing recycling districts, they must have imported at least 30,000 metric tons of materials in each of the last three years. Licenses will be given by China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The issue has been closely watched for its potential impact on recycling streams worldwide, and for its potential to increase China’s already significant imports of PET. The country, for example, has taken more than half of the recycled PET bottles collected in the United States for each of the last four years.

One recycling industry executive with factories in both the United States and China said she did not think the changes would lead to significantly more recycled PET exports to China, because the existing supply chains were already well-established, but it would likely raise prices for the bottles and lead to more competition among buyers.

Kathy Xuan, president of Romeoville, Ill.-based Parc Corp., said the changes could mean that Hong Kong, a key intermediary point for shipments, would likely be bypassed in favor of direct imports.

Now, Hong Kong firms will import whole bottles and either reprocess them, or, in something that is not entirely legal but an open secret among recyclers in China, break them into smaller loads for shipment through the porous ports of neighboring Guangdong province.

Xuan, who is also a board member of the Plastic Recycling Committee of the China Plastic Processing Industry Association, said the new rules would likely raise prices for bottles because more suppliers will be competing for them.

The biggest beneficiaries would likely be those in more direct control of bottle collection, such as the materials recovery facilities in the United States, Xuan said, speaking in an interview at the 5th China Plastics Exhibition and Conference, or Replas, held Nov. 4-5 in Ningbo. Replas is sponsored by CPPIA.

Parc also has recycling facilities in Qingdao, Shandong province.

Other Chinese recyclers at the conference also felt new rules would bring more buyers into the market, raise prices at some points in the supply chain and potentially allow end-users like polyester fiber manufacturers more direct access to materials.

If those fiber makers can legally import bottles, they may set up their own recycling operations and start buying directly, rather than working through existing recyclers, said a saleswoman for a Hong Kong-based recycling firm with operations in Guangdong province. She asked to remain anonymous.

Some smaller Chinese recyclers at the conference who process whole PET bottles collected within the country urged government officials to relax the rules for an import license, saying they had additional capacity and could cleanly process more material.

Chinese recyclers also questioned government officials about a requirement in the new rules requiring that only “clean” bottles be imported, saying that it is not possible, outside of a few sources in Japan, to import bottles that are entirely clean. An MEP official suggested that language could be adjusted.

The Chinese government also unveiled rules at the conference to set up a licensing system to allow more direct imports of polycarbonate compact disc scrap.

This is pretty cool because as articulated in my Recycling Report, right now the demand for post consumer PET exceeds the supply 3:1. If we were to limit the amount of PC PET bales exported to international markets each year, more RPET supply would be available, thereby driving down the price.

As an aside, and I don’t know how much validity this has, but I heard that because the cotton crop failed in Asia this year, competition for PET bottle bales collected in North America is very aggressive as this feedstock can be remanufactured into clothing in the absence of cotton. Go figure!

OK…in a previous post when I was deep into my bio-resin investigation I referenced a Pittsburgh life cycle study that compared the environmental performance of bio-resins vs. traditional resins. According to this study, bio-resins consumed more energy, resources, etc. in the production and released more bad stuff into the environment throughout its production than traditional fossil fuel-based resins. I remember commenting that the world of bio-resins is super confusing because every study you read contradicts every other study you read! And to that point, check out this November 24th Plastics News article that contradicts the findings of the Pittsburgh study:

Researcher questions validity of Pittsburgh life cycle study

By Mike Verespej | PLASTICS NEWS STAFF

Posted November 24, 2010

EAST LANSING, MICH. (Nov. 24, 1 p.m. ET) -- A highly publicized study sends a misleading message about bioplastics because of what it omitted from their life cycle analysis, several assumptions that are not accurate, and the decision by the research team to mix potential impacts and create a weighted average.

The study, from the University of Pittsburgh, concluded that bioplastics are environmentally more taxing to produce than conventional plastics, in part because of the farming and energy-intense chemical processing needed to produce bioplastics.

“It simply is not credible to come up with one number for a bioplastic evaluation,” by giving each environmental factor an equal weight and adding them together to come up with “an average number,” said Bruce Dale, professor of chemical engineering and associate director of biobased technologies at Michigan State University.

Mixing different impacts of the materials on the environment and public health goes against recommendations for life cycle analysis from the International Standards Organization, Dale said in a Nov. 24 telephone interview.

Specifically, ISO 14044 says that “weighting … shall not be used in any comparison to be disclosed to the public.”

“The conclusions they made are misleading in the sense that you can’t actually even make the comparisons they make,” he said. “That’s like mixing impacts for apples, oranges, pears and bananas. I don’t think the study tells us much about which plastics are better for the environment than others,” Dale said.

“It’s impossible to see if their conclusions” standing up without analyzing whether those conclusions change when the different factors are weighted differently, he said.

Dale said the research team, led by University of Pittsburgh undergraduate student Michaelangelo Tabone, assumed incorrectly that data for polylactic acid could also be used for polyhydroxyalkanoate, and it excluded the actual use and disposable aspects of bioplastics from its analysis.

“The scope of each life cycle assessment was ‘cradle-to-gate,’ [but] including only the impacts resulting from the production of each plastic and not the use or disposal,” the authors said in discussing their report. “The LCAs in this study have a limited scope.

To be comprehensive, the use and end of life should be included in future studies. The exclusion of disposal scenarios affects conclusions regarding biodegradable polymers and commonly recycled plastics.”

The research team admitted that it used “the average impact from the PLA scenarios … as substitutes for PHA’s impacts on human health, respiratory effects, ozone depletion, and ecotoxicity [because] no life cycle inventory data were available for PHA within the ecoinvent database.”

“That was one more arbitrary illogical thing they did. They decided not to study the use and disposal aspects of bioplastics,” Dale said. “Another huge flaw is that there wasn’t any data for PHAs for them to make estimates for the impact categories, so they assumed that PLA data was appropriate for PHA.”

In addition, the research only looked at specific plastics resins, and not products. That is, researchers performed a LCA on each polymer’s preproduction, looking at the environmental and health effects of the use of energy, raw materials, and chemicals to create one ounce of plastic pellets. Then they checked each plastic in its finished form against principles of green design, including biodegradability, energy efficiency, wastefulness, and toxicity.

“They didn’t compare any type of products,” said Steve Davies, global marketing director for NatureWorks LLC in Minnetonka, which manufactures PLA. “They just compared the resins and not specific products. It didn’t look at how a bioplastics product is used and how it is disposed and that’s essential to a life cycle analysis.”

Davies said a second area where the study is “causing confusion and could be damaging” to bioplastics is that there is “no meaningful way to compare one ounce of pellets prior to molding” because it doesn’t take into account the density, thickness or stiffness of the final product.

“You need a comparison based on the functional performance of the product, not just a bucketful of chemicals,” he said.

Third, he took umbrage with how the study combined 10 different environmental and health impact factors to reach “a single, overarching conclusion. They weighed them all equally and just added them up. ISO methodology, in IS0 14044, says you don’t do that.”

The research assessed 10 different impact categories: acidification, carcinogenic human health hazards, ecotoxicity, eutrophication, global warming potential, noncarcinogenic human health hazards, ozone depletion, respiratory effects, smog, and nonrenewable energy use.

“The study doesn’t tell us much about which plastics were better and they have muddied the waters,” Davies said.

Specifically, the research report and news release from the University of Pittsburgh said conventional plastics are “environmentally less taxing to produce,” that “biopolymers are among the more prolific polluters on the path to production” and that bioplastics are “dirtier to produce” than petroleum-derived plastics because “the farming and energy-intense chemical processing needed to produce [bioplastics] can devour energy and dump fertilizers and pesticides into the environment.”

“They have made a mess that others now have to clean up,” said Michigan State bioplastics professor Dale, based in East Lansing, Mich.

The University of Pittsburgh study, conducted with support from the National Science Foundation and released Oct. 21, is scheduled to published in the environmental journal “Environmental Science and Technology.”

And last but not least but a fellow SPC member emailed me the following spec sheet, which lists specs for thermoform bales, after I presented in Atlanta on how we need to create specs for recycling thermoforms if we want to recycle them.

<a href="PET bale specsOK ">Check it out!

We will discuss my questions regarding this spec sheet, the SPP conference and the Walmart SVN, and much much more Monday!

Heyyy! Oh man I just practiced my presentation for Sustainable Plastics Packaging to Dordan colleagues and boy do I have some work to do! It is sooo technical and wordy and I ran over the allotted 30 minute time. YIKES. I am catching the train back to Chicago so I can lock myself in my apartment and try to make it as good as possible before I leave for Atlanta tomorrow. I just don’t want the larger points to get lost in all the details…what to do what to do!

So this is it for me; next time we talk I will be a seasoned presenter, or something like that. UG! Wish me luckkkkkk I am definitely going to need it!

Hello!!!

Oh man was Chicago hit hard by the snow storm this weekend—it looked like we were hit by a frozen monsoon! I hope you all are staying warm!

So Sustainable Plastics Packaging 2010 was really good! The presentations were all very insightful, especially Suzanne Shelton’s of SHELTON GROUP, Patty Enneking’s of Klockner Pentaplast, Terry Swack’s of Sustainable Minds, and Sean Sabre's of ModusLink. I will give you the main highlights in a moment but first, drum roll please…

Dordan’s NEW Consumer Research Report, How Package Design Dictates Product Sales, “Seeing it Sells it!” is now circulating the plasma that is the internet! Distributed first to Dordan Newsletter subscribers on December 8th and then to the 70,000+ Packaging World New Issue Alert subscribers on the 9th, I now would like to share this Report with you, my packaging and sustainability friends. Click on the link below to access this research; I assure you it is worth the read!!

Consumer Research Report

AND I leave tomorrow morning for Bentonville, Arkansas, for Walmart’s Sustainable Value Network meeting. Keep your fingers crossed that I can make it out of Ohare!

When I return: SPP 2010 feedback; Walmart SVN feedback; and, much much more!!!

HELLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO my packaging and sustainability friends!

I can’t believe it has been so long since my last post! A LOT has happened at Dordan, which is why I have been so neglectful! Where should I start…

Well first, we broke ground for Dordan’s Victory Garden!!!! For those of you who don’t know, Dordan is donating the use of a portion of its land to a local organics farmer, who intends to use our land to grow produce for the local community next spring. This farmer supplies organics to several community restaurants, who pride themselves on providing locally sourced foodstuff for the socially and environmental conscious consumer. While at first Emily, the organic farmer, intended to plow the plot, it turns out a rotary till or what not sufficed! Here is Phil, Emily’s dad (and also the gent who helped us construct our composter), tilling the soil:



And a closer shot of the tiller in action:



It was a lot of work, but after a couple hours they had plowed probably a quarter of the entire plot, which is almost an acre. They plan to finish half of the plot before the ground gets too hard to till and then finish the rest in early spring.

We are also in the process of researching rain barrels, which we intend to place next to our facility to collect the rainwater runoff from our roof to use to water the garden come summer. Phil says he is going to teach me how to use a hose as a medium for irrigation, as the plot curves gently downhill; therefore, we can use gravity to pull the water from our rain barrels via the hose to the thirsty vegetables. Cool beans!

SOOOO I finished my research report on how package design dictates product sales. I think it is super duper good, not to tout my own horn or anything. This is the result of almost a months worth of research and attempts to illuminate that the role packaging plays in consumer purchasing decisions. We are using this “white paper” in our last outgoing advertising for the year, which is the December Packaging World New Issue Alert. For some reason I don’t want to post it to my blog just yet, as it is scheduled to be distributed to the 70,000+ Packaging World subscribers on December 9th. Therefore, after its “launch” I will post it here for you, my packaging and sustainability friends. However, check out the introduction:

Consumer Research Report
How Package Design Dictates Product Sales: “Seeing it Sells it!”
By Chandler Slavin, Marketing Manager,
Dordan Manufacturing Co. Inc.

Packaging for a product is more than a medium of protection and storage or another convenient forum for advertising. Due to the significant investments made by marketers on the packaging of their products, one would have to assume that industry believes packaging to have substantial influence on consumer choice behavior and product experience. Despite this, there is little academic literature studying these interactions and no clear theory of exactly how packaging impacts consumers’ attitudes and actions. For example,
Does packaging influence consumers’ willingness-to-pay? Does it impact their brand choice? Do different kinds of packaging evoke different reactions in consumers? Are there external manifestations of these reactions in terms of their purchasing behavior?

Through a discussion of contemporary consumer and market research, we seek to answer some of these questions. In particular, we (1) discover how package design informs consumers’ perception of the product and brand; (2) discuss how said perceptions dictate consumer purchasing behavior; and (3) determine how to capitalize on these elements in order to increase product sales and product/brand loyalty.

Have I sparked your interest? Are you just chomping at the bit for MORE MORE MORE?

AND I leave for Atlanta on Tuesday for my presentation at Sustainable Plastic Packaging on recycling thermoforms. YIKES.

Let’s talk tomorrow.

Tootles!