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rage.
Yes, the packaging industry actually has a name for it: that
head-throbbing, teeth-gnashing frustration you feel when you
can't get the CD out of its plastic, or the toy out of its
titanium-tough shell, or the screw top off the cooking oil-which
is why I was calling Wesson last week and ranting at the
customer-service rep: ``I cannot open my oil!''
The rep, who sounded like a guy who opens bottles with his
teeth, made me feel like a worm on life support. ``What do you
mean you can't get it open?''
Hmm. What could I possibly mean? ``I CAN'T GET IT OPEN!'' At a
dinner party later that same night, I made my guests try to open
the bottle too. Two out of three of them failed.
So what gives? Why are companies selling products sealed tighter
than the tomb of Hammurabi? (Or was it the Code of Hammurabi?
Anyway, sealed very tight.)
Oh, there's a reason, of course. There are several reasons, and
they all make sense-but that doesn't mean the industry is off
the hook.
``Packagers don't say, `I'm putting this seal on because I want
to make it hard for people to get into my product,''' said JoAnn
Hines, aka ``The Packaging Diva,'' a 30-year consultant to the
field.
Packaging, however confounding, exists to keep whatever's inside
safe, fresh, unspoiled, undamaged and unpilfered. Without
effective packaging, Hines points out, products would actually
cost more because there would be so much waste-bruised berries,
cracked crockery, leaky containers that leaked onto other
containers until the whole shipment had to be tossed.
In fact, in countries where the packaging is still pretty crude
(the Indian spices I buy usually come in stained cardboard
boxes), the waste can be 50% vs. just 2% or 3% in industrialized
countries. So our packaging is indubitably effective.
Packaging also has evolved along with our (perceived) need for
convenience. Whereas long ago you'd go to the cracker barrel and
get yourself a scoop of crackers-which, I imagine, would all end
up as crumbs-now we have tiny little packs with three crackers
and a chunk of cheese welded into a plastic mausoleum, the
easier to tote to a picnic (a small one).
Packagers claim we want this convenience yet feel guilty about
the waste it entails, so we end up blaming them. They're right.
We do want conveniences (but not necessarily three-cracker
packs), and we do feel guilty. But the reason we blame the
packagers is because they should be giving us alternatives that
are less wasteful and-while we're at it-a lot easier to open!
Plastic clamshells and cellophane wrapping should be the first
to go.
``I purchased a stapler last week in a hard plastic casing
which appeared to have a front and back panel,'' recalls Lori
Quaranta, owner of Consetta Creative Publicity. ``Wrong! I tried
every flat utensil I could find to pry it apart before resorting
to cutting the package open with scissors and cutting my finger
on the edge of the hard plastic. Did I really need a stapler
that bad?''
No. She needed an aspirin.
Speaking of which, says John Lister, chairman of the
package-design firm Lister Butler, ``I think it was Kissinger
who found a bottle of Excedrin which had Richard Nixon's teeth
marks on it.''
Lister's own (metaphorical) teeth marks can be found on the box
of Twinings Tea he recently tackled. The teabag, he notes, ``was
in a sealed metallic pouch, which was in turn inside a cardboard
box, which was in turn inside this infernal plastic wrap.''
Three layers protecting one lousy tea bag? That's just nuts!
When companies finally come up with packaging that wastes less,
opens easier and doesn't seem utterly anal compulsive, they will
find an audience that is wrapped.
Er ... rapt.
Read more of
Lenore's articles
here
lskenazy@adage.com |
