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I have been responsible for marketing PLA (corn resin) plastic bottles for approximately five years, and I’ve been attending the Wal-Mart Sustainable Packaging Expo for four. Each year, I follow the progress of NatureWorks, the maker of IngeoTM PLA resin, which is used for everything from shrink films to disposable silverware to vitamin bottles. PLA, or polylactic acid, is a compostable material that meets ASTM 6400, a standard established by the Biodegradable Products Institute.

Although my working knowledge of PLA is somewhat limited to rigid plastic bottles, my consumer experience with the bioresin includes the much-criticized Sunchips bag, which apparently creates more decibels of noise than the average subway train.

The noise is interesting, but not necessarily surprising when I think about how we used to tell which bottles in our trade show booth were traditional clear plastic, and which were PLA: We’d flick our fingers onto the bottom of the bottles, and if we heard a dull thump, we knew the bottles were PET plastic. However, if we heard a more high-pitched “clink,” we knew it was PLA.

Packaging, Sustainable Packaging

Earlier this week, I heard the YMCA is changing its logo and its “everyday name” to “the Y,” because that’s how most people refer to the youth-focused non-profit. According to Mamie Moore, national spokeswoman for YMCA of the USA, “What we’re doing is calling ourselves ‘the Y’ because that’s what everybody calls us. But YMCA is still our legal name.”

YMCA, of course, is already short for Young Men’s Christian Association, and some media speculate the organization is trying to remove the “Christian” reference from its acronym. However, the Y contends that it put two years of research into the name change and new logo, and that they are really just trying to connect with a hip young audience that does not understand what the Y’s mission is. (I’m a little confused how shortening the name to ‘the Y’ helps explain that mission any better or differently than ‘YMCA’ did, and even more confused because both the old and new logo emphasized the letter Y and both have a proportionately smaller “YMCA” as part of the mark.)

The Y is not the first well-known entity to shorten its name to shed old perceptions or connect with new customers. In 1991, Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name and simplified its logo to KFC. At that time, KFC management was trying to make itself a chain of the 1990s, introducing healthier menu items, enforcing stricter operating standards, and ultimately rebranding the company that Colonel Harlan Sanders first franchised in 1952. KFC not only resonated with customers who already referred to it by its initials, but also allowed the company to drop the emphasis on “fried.”

A few years later, Federal Express officially became FedEx, and not just because that’s what most people already called it; FedEx also spent several years researching the name change and creating the new logo. Key issues identified through research showed that Federal Express sounded too similar to a growing field of global competitors. Also, the word “Federal” – originally chosen to convey an official and reliable alternative to the U.S. Postal Service – had become associated with government bureaucracy in the minds of consumers. The new logo, which had to reinforce the company’s goal of being “big and bold but friendly and accessible” had an added bonus: While spelling out ‘Federal Express’ only allowed for 58-inch letters on the side of a delivery truck, the letters spelling FedEx now stand six feet tall on most trucks.

Each of these high-profile name changes were backed by months or years of research, hundreds of thousands of dollars in media and PR, and an overall broad awareness by consumers of what these companies already provided. But also this week, I read about a small local company – currently known as The Cupcakery – that is changing its name to The Cup later this month.

According to the news article, the multi-location cupcake bakery, started in 2007 in St. Louis, is changing its name to avoid confusion with other cupcakeries opening across the nation. (The news release didn’t specify, but I’m guessing they are referring to cupcake franchises such as Cupcake Station and Original Cupcake.) But I can’t help wondering if they are inviting a whole new source of confusion; to me, their new name says nothing of cupcakes and says everything about being a coffeehouse. (It also doesn’t help that The Cupcakery’s Flavor of the Week is Mocha Cappucino.)

The new logo does include a cupcake with some swirly icing, but the new illustration is not nearly as “cupcake-y” as the previous logo with the clearly-fluted brown baking cup below the generous green icing.

Even though I’m in St. Louis, I’m not familiar with The Cupcakery, so I don’t know if they conducted research to show that this name and logo change resonate with their target demographics. (I hope they did.) I also have no idea if they are really changing their name to avoid confusion with other companies, or if perhaps they are being forced to change it because they did not trademark it and someone else did. I hope I’m wrong about this, but from the outside looking in, it seems like a case of making a change that will avoid one problem yet create many others.

Changing a name, logo or packaging is one of the most exciting and stressful things a company can do. When is the right time to change a brand, and how do you know if the change is a good one? Consumer research can point you in the right direction, but you also have to look at what you’re changing and ask yourself: Am I making it better, or am I just making it different?

Business, Communications, Marketing

A certain St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist has said that as a city, St. Louis possesses an inferiority complex that prevents us from aggressively pursuing – and winning – things that are coveted by other cities. Corporate headquarters. Cultural institutions. Sports teams. One other thing that St. Louis is notable for missing out on is venture capital funding, which is generally required to lure healthy and interesting start-up companies to any town (or enable them to stay there).

But at least one emerging St. Louis company is not only making a mark in the Midwest. They are getting national (and international) press for a proprietary technology that even Ozzy Osbourne is interested in.

Cofactor Genomics LLC, an 8-person, $2.5 million company based in St. Louis, is working with two other companies to create a genetic map of the eccentric and hard-living rocker, and then interpret the results to provide insight into Ozzy’s genetics and ancestry.

The results of the project, which began when Ozzy Osborne approached a company called Knome to provide the genetic interpretation and data analysis, will be featured in the Prince of Darkness’s new health column in The Times of London. Cofactor will begin the gene sequencing process within the next two months, and the Knome’s data analysis will take several more months to complete.

Osbourne approached Knome because of its recent work interpreting the genetic maps of a dozen high-profile celebrities for the PBS Series Faces of America. According to Cofactor’s President and Chief Technology Office, Dr. Jarret Glasscock, the genetic analysis may, in part, explain how Ozzy Osbourne has been able to survive a life of sex, drugs, rock & roll, and occasional encounters with bats.

For now, the attention on Cofactor should cause excitement not just for that company, but for all new companies hoping to find the one bit of notariety that propels their company from start-up to stability.

“As more celebrities get involved, (genome sequencing) will become more mainstream,” Glasscock said in the St. Louis Business Journal on June 28. “As prices continue to fall and the technology continue to progress — over last four years, we have made huge leaps and bounds — this will become very common.”

If genome sequencing does indeed become common, we can thank a rather uncommon rocker for helping one local company make its mark early.

Marketing

Pantene is doing away with the metallic banding on its caps to reduce costs and simplify its packaging.

Pantene is on a mission to save money by, among other things, simplifying its packaging and abandoning the gold foil on its closures that is the last visual reminder of the striking gold caps that once set the brand apart. But last week it spent money on an interesting advertising event that combined the appeal of reality TV with a great public relations opportunity.

It was a clever gimmick: Encourage women with great hair to compete for the title of Tabloid TV’s “Mane Girl” and become the “World’s First Reality Hair Star.” The grand prize was the opportunity to star in the company’s first live commercial, which was filmed in the same ambush style that Publishers House Sweepstakes Winners learn of their great fortune.

Pantene embarked on this unique campaign because they are promoting the newest generation of “customized solutions based on hair structure.” To support the reality TV theme – and emphasize the many different personal interpretations of what makes great hair – Pantene enlisted reality show  personalities Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi (MTV’s Jersey Shore), Lauren “Lo” Bosworth (The Hills), and Jill Zarin (Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City) and had each woman create You Tube videos giving their tongue-in-cheek explanation of why they should be Pantene’s Mane Girl.

None of the existing reality TV stars won the competition, of course. The honor went to Marissa Hopson, a Fort Lauderdale journalism student that Procter & Gamble says was “chosen based on her ability to be engaging and confident on camera, her personality, and of course – her beautiful hair.”

Pantene and P&G might wind up as the big winners, however, by connecting with a hip new audience through a medium they understand, and tempting us with the one thing every woman wants when she wakes up each morning: a really good hair day.

Marketing

April has been dominated by a single issue: Save the Earth. But at the end of a month filled with so many Earth-friendly themes, I am left wondering if most people understand which of their actions are really sustainable and which ones simply make them feel better about what they consume.

My month started with a trip to Bentonville, Arkansas, for the Wal-Mart Sustainable Packaging Expo. For each of the past five years, Wal-Mart and Sam’s Clubs have invited over 100 packaging suppliers who offer sustainable packaging solutions to their key suppliers.

Last week, the nation celebrated the 40th anniversary of Earth Day.

And this week, I wrapped up the month by participating in a bioresin survey from Iowa State University.

A Wal-Mart winner: A package redesign by Body Fortress allows it to fit the same volume of protein powder in a canister that uses 30% less plastic.

The Wal-Mart Expo was notable for its many admirable materials and technologies that have little practical chance of succeeding in Wal-Mart’s “cost-neutral” business model. The room was full of vendors — manufacturers of plastic and aluminum bottles, paperboard, pallets, films and thermoformed trays — who all offer legitimate sustainable solutions. But the fact is that many of these solutions still come at a price premium, especially those products that contain some or all recycled materials or are made from bioresins. Wal-Mart is hoping that by mandating use of sustainable materials through its Packaging Scorecard, that the volumes they support will drive down prices for recycled feedstock. Eventually, that may happen. But for now, the only viable sustainable solutions that meet Wal-Mart’s cost-driven mantra are those that cost the same or less than the packaging they replace.

The Iowa State University survey was more proof that sustainable solutions — particularly bioresins — are having trouble gaining traction. The survey sought to find out why companies making products from bioresins (which in this country, are primarily corn-based) are making these products, what challenges they have encountered making them, and what barriers would need to be removed in order to have bioresins succeed on a large scale. Overall, the survey was well-designed and seemed to consider most of the factors that impact this young industry (cost, supply, certifications, government support and subsidies). However, I was somewhat surprised that “performance” was not among their list of potential barriers to large-scale adoption.

All of April’s activities (except for the horrific oil spill in the Gulf Coast) demonstrate steps in the right direction for the environment. Maybe by the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, we’ll have options for recycled packaging and bioresins that are not only at cost parity with traditional plastics, but also outperform them.

Packaging, Sustainable Packaging

Last year, you could hardly walk through Natural Products Expo West without consuming at least one beverage shot that promised to boost your energy. But this year, whether it’s because of a return to wholesomeness or a fascination with Lindsey Lohan, “milkaholics” can find dairy products that solve a whole host of problems. As a bonus, they almost always have clever branding and interesting packaging to draw you into the booth.

Do your children like bugs? Then they will love Lifeway ProBugs Organic Whole Milk Kefir. It’s a drinkable dairy product with probiotics (the “friendly bugs” – or bacteria – found in the stomach that boost the immune system) and great flavors like Sublime Slime Lime. Lifeway Kefir increases the level of good bacteria in the digestive systems of children and also promotes overall healthy digestion, and its colorful plastic pouches with funny bug illustrations make them an appealing Gogurt-like drink with added benefits.

Does your dog like frozen yogurt? Regular frozen dog treats are made mostly from water, dried whey, soy flour and animal fat. But yoghund frozen yogurt treats are not only made from real yogurt – they  too have probiotics (or Yobiotics) to ensure the digestive health of your canine. First developed by dog boarders who saw common tummy troubles in canine guests, they can be given as a daily treat to enhance pets’ digestive and immune health. Also for dogs, Nature’s Milk offers a series of goat milk products – from protein-rich bite-sized bones to an entire line of goat’s milk shampoos and wipes – that are allergen-free for sensitive dogs.

Do you like ice cream too? All-natural dairy snacks from Late July Organic Snacks include its yummy Limited Edition Peppermint Chocolate Covered Sandwich Cookies. Late July’s evocative packaging shows a young child on an idyllic beach picnic with his family, and represents that “carefree time of year when your worries are a million miles away. A time so special it should only be paired with healthful, eco-friendly snacks that offer families the carefree choices they deserve.”

At the opposite end of the all-natural scale, Manitoba Harvest has a chocolate milk made not from dairy sources, but from hemp. The slightly-watery beverage is the chocolate-flavored equivalent of coconut milk – it sounds exotic, but is always a little disappointing. Manitoba Harvest says hemp protein is a truly organic plant-based protein that both carnivores and vegans can enjoy, and can be added to juices, smoothies and baked goods such as breads and pies.

Just about the only thing I haven’t seen milk paired with at Natural Products Expo West is alcoholic beverages – although I still have a whole day to visit the booths on the downstairs level. I’ll be watching out for throngs of milkaholics queuing up for free samples.

Packaging

I’ve been repeating this new mantra to myself all week, trying to figure out if it’s true – and if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. I didn’t coin this phrase. I read it in a blog post by Penelope Trunk, who was essentially rewriting a “guest post” that Christine Hohlbaum had written for Penelope’s Brazen Careerist blog. I don’t know if Hohlbaum invented this phrase either, or if perhaps she read it in a 2007 article written by Sally Hogshead. (Hogshead isn’t just brazen about her career; her web site is RadicalCareering.com.)

For those not familiar with Penelope, she admittedly has a tough time turning over the content on her blog to a guest writer – even one she admires. She says she completely rewrote what Hohlbaum submitted, but I suspect Penelope did a pretty good job of summarizing the key points in Hohlbaum’s new book, The Power of Slow: 101 Ways to Save Time in our 24/7 World.

I haven’t read the book, but if I’m interpreting the blog post correctly, Hohlbaum’s point is that in our overscheduled world, our default state is “busy.” It used to be that if someone passed us and asked, “How are you doing?” we would automatically answer, “Fine.” Now, fine has been replaced with busy, and I think Hohlbaum is telling us that this shift represents a sad, stressed and dangerous state for the new norm. Especially for those people who think busy is a perfect (even preferable?) synonym for fine.

I think I like this phrase, but not because I relate busy to being overworked; I think I see busy as the opposite of underworked and underchallenged. In my daily business relationships, people want to know if we’ve been busy. I get called on by a lot of printers, who all ask if we’re busy. If we’re not busy, that means we’re slow. In the manufacturing world, slow isn’t good (I saw that side of the business a year ago), so busy is a welcome change. Busy means you’re doing fine. It means, “We’re going to be okay.” If you’re not busy, you’re going out of business. A lot of the printers I talk to are not busy.

There is another side to this too. You can be busy, and still not be doing fine. For example, I know a lot of freelance creatives – many of whom were previously employed at agencies – who are uncomfortably busy, but they are not working. Or more accurately, they are not working as much as they want to be working. They are busy with the tasks of finding new projects and making new connections. They are busy being hunters, gatherers and doers, when frankly they are much more comfortable just being creative.

If Hogshead is the author of “busy is the new fine,” then she wrote it at the peak of our pre-recession euphoria, and certainly didn’t mean being busy is better than being unemployed. She meant that if we’re overworked (ie: spending 65% of our waking hours at our jobs), then we better make sure we are working at something we love. I agree with that philosophy as well.

I will probably read Hohlbaum’s book, not just because I want to understand exactly what she means by “busy is the new fine,” but also because I’d like to see if slowing my life down would be a good thing. (According to Penelope Trunk, a big part of achieving that is learning to say no, which is something else I’m working on.) Hopefully I’ll read it soon. Unless I get too busy. Which would probably be fine.

Business, Communications

I am not a social media expert. Aside from rather infrequent blogging, a bit of experience using and buying ad space on career-related web sites, and casual Facebooking, I’ve learned most of my social media skills from what real social media experts have written. But when it comes to this “new” media, there are three specific mistakes I commonly see people make, and they are things that may prevent someone from getting hired in the future – or even cause them to lose the job they have now.

1. Just because it’s the Internet, it doesn’t mean it’s okay to spell things wrong. Did you notice I spelled “it’s” correctly twice in the preceding sentence? Well guess what – other people notice every time you spell it wrong. And that happens a lot (not alot). There is a big difference between texting to “ur” friends and writing a thank-you note to your future employer. Know the difference, and remember that every business email, blog post or LinkedIn comment is being subconsciously evaluated by people who may be sticklers for the English language.
2. If you’re suddenly getting “recommended” by every current and former co-worker, you’re looking for a job. It’s one thing to actively campaign for recommendations on LinkedIn when you’re between jobs, but it reveals something quite different when you are still employed. It tells everyone you are looking for a new job. This is not necessarily a bad thing – unless you are trying to keep your job search a secret, or your current boss is either linked to you or linked to the people recommending you – but it is something employees should think about when they decide to solicit recommendations from every cohort they ever worked with. Think about it this way: If you were trying to keep your job search a secret, would you wear your best suit to work on the days you have interviews? If you want to be sneaky about looking for a job, don’t let social media betray you.
   

   I don't advise "friending" your boss. But if you must, then please refrain from disparaging him or her while complaining about your job.

3. There is never any good reason to “friend” your boss. My boss is great. He thinks I do a really good job, and we have a lot of similar interests. If he wasn’t my boss, we might even choose to be friends. But there is no reason he and I should be friends on Facebook or MySpace. (I think it would be okay to be linked on LinkedIn – but take heed of the previous point.) And it’s not just that I don’t want him knowing my business; he doesn’t want me knowing his business either. For every time his photo showed up under “Friend Suggestions” on my Facebook page, I’m sure my photo showed up on his page. If he could resist the temptation to friend me, surely I should resist too. Go with me on this one. Even CareerBuilder agrees – unless your entire corporate culture encourages SuperPoking the boss, it’s best to limit social media friends to your own level of the organization.

Like I said, I am not a social media expert, and these rules may not apply to every person. But I have seen plenty of people who either don’t know these rules – or don’t appreciate them – and who have suffered career setbacks as a result. I don’t think it takes an expert to realize they are rather important rules in the social media age.

Communications

I was recently involved in the launch of a new line of packaging for dry ingredients. The line was intended to compete with another company’s well-entrenched line that had no other direct competition. The reason we decided to bring out these knock-offs was because we saw a unique opportunity to capture up to 50% of the market, which was looking for any reason not to buy from the other manufacturer.

You see, the other manufacturer had, at one time, been an independent company who sold its packaging to distributors and direct customers alike. Then it became affiliated with the largest distributor in the industry. Once that happened, the second-largest distributor – and all the other distributors, for that matter – hated to line the coffers of their competitor, if even indirectly.

It seemed like the industry needed a second source for these bottles, and since we could make the full line with existing equipment, we jumped on the opportunity. We knew if we could capture sales from a good portion of the alienated distributors, this could be a profitable line.

But we never counted on selling this new line to the large distributor whose affiliate made the bottles we were knocking off. And yet, when orders rolled in, the very first one came from that distributor.

In sales circles, when someone is really good at connecting with the customers, we say, “She could sell ice to Eskimos.” In this case, I don’t doubt the salesperson did her job well. But there were also three other critical factors at work that helped us get this first order:

• We made exact knock-offs of the competitor’s style (which works only with custom caps), but also built another version with a neck thread that works with standard commercial closures.
• We’re selling them in relatively small quantities, making them accessible to more companies.
• We’ve priced them competitively, and our central manufacturing location provides shipping efficiencies to customers across the country.

What we might also learn over time is that the affiliation between the largest distributor and the other manufacturer is not actually as strong as the other distributors perceived it to be. If that’s the case, and if we can capture sales from a source we weren’t even counting on, then it may not be a case of selling ice to Eskimos, but rather a case of selling a relevant product into a competitive environment.

In any case, let’s hope these early orders and initial interest in this new product line are just the tip of the iceberg.

Marketing, Packaging

Among the various newsletters I receive by email each day, a link within one of them stood out to me yesterday, perhaps because of its provocative headline: 10 Reasons Your Team Hates You (They Just Won’t Say It To Your Face). It was a link to a September 2009 blog post at thoughtLEADERS, LLC, and I suppose it was included in the e-newsletter because it offers some opportunities for work-related New Years Resolutions for anyone who has to coexist on a work team.

Each of the 10 undesirable leadership qualities assumes it is the boss who has these negative behaviors. However, in today’s team environments, I would argue that any member of the team can bring down other members, especially on the type of team where each member is subject matter expert for his or her own area of specialization. For example, I am currently on a team responsible for launching about a dozen new products for the personal care industry. We have sales, marketing, engineering and operations all involved in equal (but distinct) roles, and any one of these people could potentially undermine the group’s success even though only one of us is the “boss” of the project.

Overall, I think this is an accurate and succinct list of qualities that can alienate employees and undermine the success of companies or departments. I have worked with people that have each of these character flaws, but thankfully I’ve never worked with any individual who had more than two or three of them. And usually, if one of the team leaders brought down his or her employees with any of these tactics, there was someone else within the organization who made up for it with the opposite behavior. (For example, does it really matter if your boss knows or cares a lot about your personal life so long as other people you work with make you feel like an important individual?)

I even recognize myself in several of the 10 Reasons, and I know other people I’ve worked would say the same thing. (I know this because past employers have told me I created stress among employees when I got too uptight about projects. My response to that criticism was to become defensive and proclaim that I was only stressed out because those other people might not have jobs if we didn’t win the project we were working on – and as team leader I felt it was my responsibility to escalate the urgency of the project. I now realize that’s not good management style after all, but at the time, I thought my stressed out manner was actually a positive attribute that everyone on my team should have shared.)

Another of the 10 Reasons that resonates with me is telling people to have a “balanced life,” and then setting a bad example. It used to drive me absolutely nuts when a previous boss would send me a rash of emails on Sunday afternoon inquiring when we were going to submit a proposal or get paid by a client. “Get a life!” I would think as I stewed over his emails while watching the second half of a football game, half-guilty that I wasn’t working on something productive. 

But now, in my dual roles as a business owner and a part-time employee of another company, I find myself working at odd hours and sending emails to people who may resent my intrusion on their personal time.

I have actually rationalized this behavior as important to my career, and as evidence that I’m a dedicated team player who is always accessible. But maybe that’s not how others see it, and maybe there’s a better way to demonstrate my commitment that doesn’t include making my co-workers feel like they need to reply to me at 10:00pm on a Tuesday. (And make my family feel like I’m working all the time.)

So for 2010, I’m going to make some resolutions to be a better business person and a better team player, even if some of my new behaviors are counter to how I’ve performed in the past. Most notably:

• I will differentiate between critical issues and non-critical issues, and only deal with the most critical issues outside of normal work hours. This will provide more of that elusive work-life balance to me and my family, and hopefully resolve any perceptions that I’m either too involved with work, guilty of brown-nosing, or have expectations that my clients and co-workers should work the same nutty hours I do.
• I will make a better effort to manage my work hours so I’m neither giving too much time, nor too little time, to the people I work for, so everyone gets a fair deal and gets what they need on time.
• And in addition to serving the companies I work for, I will spend more time investigating the technologies and social media platforms that will make me a better marketer and better blogger. And, ultimately, a better person to work with and work for.

Happy New Years!

Marketing