Glenn Davis is a man who is passionate about packaging.

‘Packaging is the primary communication of a brand,’ says Davis, president and founder of Davis & Associates. ‘Our objective is to define those elements in a product’s presentation that are essential to the highest percentage of consumer acceptance.’

Founded almost 30 years ago, Toronto-based Davis & Associates counts among its clients such packaged goods titans as Kraft, Warner Lambert (Canada and u.s.), Lipton, Quaker Oats and Lever-Pond’s.

The firm’s core philosophy hinges on ‘understanding consumers’ expectations and preferences’ for a given category and for particular brands within that category. This angle of approach is used on all projects, in a process that may be more or less formalized, depending on the requirements of each project.

For projects requiring that extra level of consumer insight, Davis & Associates provides Image Diagnostics Research, an integrated research and design method developed to access consumer expectations and preferences in a manner that replicates consumers’ actual shopping behavior.

‘Image Diagnostics basically gives consumers a product communication examination,’ Davis says. Because Image Diagnostics gleans consumers’ subliminal responses, as opposed to having them analytically discuss their preferences, ‘this method does not reduce brand imagery to a science of pasting together preferences, but instead sculpts all those preferences into a single, strong message that is uniquely compelling,’ he explains.

According to Davis, Image Diagnostics was instrumental in a recent evolution of the Quaker Oats brand identity. The technique revealed that, in addition to the core elements of the Quaker Oats logo – the word Quaker, the Quaker man, the oval, the colors blue and gold – the color red is also very important to consumers, since they relate it to the brand’s original product, Quaker Oats in bags. The color therefore confers a feeling of warmth, trustworthiness and vitality. ‘So, if you take a look at the shelves now, you’ll see a good, strong red panel around that Quaker man, on every product, from instant oatmeal, to nutritional bars, to cold cereals,’ Davis observes.

Davis says that his firm’s philosophy of operating is focused on service and relationships. That philosophy dictates the firm’s team-based approach to client service: each client is serviced by a core team consisting of the account director – who is the key client contact – as well as a production coordinator, and a finished artist.

‘These three people are the constants. They get to know all the processes that the client uses, their approvals system, the details of their domicile, and generally how they like things and how their suppliers like things,’ he explains.

This approach minimizes errors and keeps work flowing quickly through the company. However, while the core team is constant, the firm’s 11 designers operate in a design pool, rotating among accounts to keep creativity fresh.

One test of good design is its ability to last. Using that yardstick, Davis & Associates is clearly on the right track. For example, redesigns of Benylin cough syrup and Turtles chocolates have remained essentially intact for the last several years.

‘When we started on Benylin in 1991-2?, the bottle and the box were just plain panels and type. There was absolutely no beauty to this thing at all,’ recalls Davis. ‘The image that we developed for Benylin was built around a [profile] of a human face, because the product relates to the nose, and the throat and congestion and so on,’ he says.

That consistent face image allowed for easy color coding of the many different Benylin formulations. Since then, the design has gone through several evolutions, but ‘that initial concept [we were] so proud of has lasted eight (nine?) years,’ Davis says. Staying power is one thing, but the acid test of good design is sales.

‘What makes clients want to use us is the sales increase,’ Davis says. Past redesigns have demonstrated up to a 400% sales increase.

But what about driving sales for a new product? In a new category?

When Davis & Associates began working on Lipton’s Soup Works, a dry homemade soup starter mix, it needed all the components of brand identity, Davis says. The firm’s Packaging Association of Canada Gold award-winning design centers on the image of a soup pot, within which the consumer can see all of the ingredients for their ‘homemade’ soup. (Glenn, need to fix the description/rationale part a bit on this one). Sales for Soup Works were 300% above launch projections.

There’s more to Davis & Associates than package design. While ‘the creation of strong and effective brand messages’ through package design is a core strength for the firm, other areas of focus include name generation and trade and consumer promotional materials. As well, the firm also takes those brand messages out of the grocery store, for key client Ford of Canada.

Through a dedicated Ford team, Davis & Associates delivers consistent branding on corporate literature and dealer promotional communications. Plus, this year, the firm has been involved from the ground up in the Ford dealerships’ new Ford Fast Lane initiative, an alternative to the Midas Muffler and Jiffy-Lubes, which allows consumers to obtain affordable, no-appointment quick service by dealership-skilled technicians. Davis & Associates developed signage, waiting room design and promotional posters for the Ford Fast Lane implementation across Canada.

Davis says that to remain competitive in tomorrow’s marketplace, the key success factor for Canadian design firms will be the ability to function on a global basis. To that end, Davis & Associates has conducted significant research on ‘The Global Design of Brand Images’, assembling a set of guidelines on how to design with a multi-cultural understanding of key elements such as symbols, shape and colors. Those guidelines are put to the test with accounts like Warner-Lambert, for whom Davis & Associates has designed the global identities of Trident, Clorets and Halls cough tablets – each sold in over 50 countries around the world.

In the very near term, ‘the major brands are going to be multi-cultural, global brands,’ Davis says, ‘and the future of Canadian design companies is that we be world players.’

Davis & Associates

755 The Queensway East

Mississauga, Ont. L4Y 4C6

Tel: 905-270-2501

Fax: 905-270-3969

e-mail: info@davisassoc.com

Also in this sponsored supplement:

– The Watt Design Group: From food to fashion, The Watt Design Group offers real-world solutions p.D2

– Russell Inc: Russell’s ‘Thinking Design’ builds powerful brands p.D3

– Perennial Design Company Limited: Integrated design and marketing p.D4

– Tudhope Associates: Asking the right questions p.D5

– Ove and Goodhue: Partners in solution design p.D6

– Thomas Pigeon Design: Unleashing the power of brands through design p.D8

– Karo [Toronto] Inc: Design at the forefront of change p.D10

– Strategies International: It’s all about trust p.D12

– Hunter Straker p.D13

– Marovino Design Group p.D14

– Genesys Design: Canada’s rising star in design gets the PartyLite account p.D15