It was your basic kind of design challenge: in a crowded category where everything has been done, do something new.

FBI Brands of St. Laurent, Que. planned a major extension of its Fresh ‘n Tasty brand of fruit drinks ­ six new premium fruit cocktails, made with spring water. Toronto-based Portofino Studios was handed the task of creating packaging that would make the new line, called Splash, stand apart from its many competitors on the supermarket shelf.

‘We had to stress appetite appeal, so we knew we needed dramatic photography,’ says Portofino president Trevor Pedler. ‘We also needed a visual approach that reinforced the competitive selling proposition ­ that these drinks are made with spring water.’

Eventually, they settled on a photo image of bright-colored fruit splashing through crystal-clear water, which would wrap around the entire carton.

It is quite rare, says Pedler, to see this kind of elaborate treatment in beverage packaging ­ and there’s a reason for that.

‘It’s really difficult to accomplish,’ he laughs. The project photographer, Richard Picton, spent more than a week in the studio testing various rigs designed to capture this splashing effect, and then another six days of shooting to get the desired results.

‘There’s a big difference between this and a tabletop shot where you can control all the elements,’ Pedler explains. ‘With this process, every drop of water reacts differently to the fruit and the light when it hits, so you don’t know what you’ve achieved until you process the film.

‘It’s a huge undertaking. But we knew we had to do it, because it’s an incredibly competitive category.’

Indeed, confronted with such competitive pressures, marketers today show more inclination than ever to clothe their products in the highest-impact packaging possible ­ designs that, like the Fresh ‘n Tasty Splash carton, will positively leap off the shelf and seize the attention of an indifferent consumer.

‘It’s very much a part of most briefs we get,’ says Greg Berube, director of communications for Toronto-based marketing and design firm Strategies International. ‘Everybody’s trying to be that much more different, interesting and intriguing.’

Given that reality, one would expect retailers’ shelves nowadays to be chock-a-block with the most innovative and eye-catching package concepts that designers can possibly coax from their Power Macs. And yet a tour of the supermarket aisles soon reveals that this is manifestly not the case – a sad fact that few designers would dispute. What’s the obstacle?

‘Clients often say they want the packaging to jump off the shelf,’ observes Nanistya Martohardjono, creative director with Toronto-based Spencer Francey Peters. ‘But they don’t necessarily want it to be really innovative. And not because they lack knowledge or are no fun. Most packaged-good marketers are limited in the risks they can afford to take.’

John Marovino, president of the Etobicoke, Ont.-based Marovino Design Group, agrees. ‘Our most daring propositions are rarely selected as the final design,’ he says. ‘Even though they may want breakthrough packaging, marketers generally tend to go with more conservative ideas. And that’s understandable. Because brands have an equity that can be translated into dollar value, and you don’t want to erode that value.’

It’s the rare client that will champion breakthrough ideas. In 1995, Marovino’s team revamped the packaging for Dare cookies. Traditionally in this category, cookies either appear against a backdrop of ingredients, or are shown presented appetizingly on a plate (usually with the obligatory glass of milk). In this case, Kitchener, Ont.-based Dare Foods insisted upon something dramatically different ­ and to Marovino’s surprise, went for the most extreme of the options presented.

The new design, he says, uses evocative images to convey the quality of the experience that consumers get from the cookie. So the package for French Cremes uses images drawn from French Impressionist paintings, while the one for Lemon Cremes depicts a white cockatoo perched in a lemon tree.

‘Most marketers would say, ‘What’s that bird doing on a package of cookies? How are consumers going to perceive this?’ You can analyze it to death. But this client was willing to risk that consumers were intelligent enough not to need such a literal translation, you know, ‘This is a good cookie because it’s on such a nice plate.”

Given the natural tendency toward conservatism among the stewards of established brands, the greatest scope for high-impact design tends to be offered by the newest players in a category.

‘Upstarts have to gamble to compete,’ says Chris Plewes, creative director for Plewes Bertouche Design Group in Toronto. ‘When you’ve got a huge brand with a number of skus, you just can’t be as flexible.’

‘New product development can be very exciting from a design standpoint,’ agrees Martohardjono. When, for example, Cantel Amigo hit the market in 1994, it represented an entirely new proposition ­ the cellular phone itself and the service came bundled together as a low-cost option for the consumer market. For Spencer Francey Peters, the task was to come up with packaging that would defy the conventions of the category ­ the stern, businesslike look ­ and convey such qualities as affordability and accessibility.

The use of warm colors, whimsical spot illustrations and lowercase lettering in the ‘Amigo’ wordmark all helped create a feel that set the product instantly apart. ‘Nobody had ever seen that kind of friendly package for a cell phone,’ Martohardjono says.

The further from the mainstream of a category a new product is positioned, the further marketers can push the package design. Vancouver’s Mark Anthony Group, for example, introduced its Rotting Grape wine to appeal to consumers 19-25 ­ a segment of the market that’s not in the habit of purchasing wine. To make the product jump from the shelf and grab their attention, the project team at M5 Design Group in Vancouver proposed packaging that would echo the anti-establishment attitudes of that age group.

The Rotting Grape label features densely-packed, white-on-black typewritten text that sends up the pretensions of wine snobs. ‘The provincial liquor board didn’t care for it,’ says Don Chisholm, president of M5. ‘But the tone is in keeping with how 25-year-olds think about wine.’

To achieve designs that truly stand out, Chisholm says, the creators of packaging must begin by venturing out into the marketplace and undertaking a thorough audit of what’s happening in the category.

‘The question you’re asking,’ he says, ‘is what aren’t your competitors doing? How can we be in contrast to everybody else? That d’esn’t necessarily mean being loud and garish. But it d’es mean going for a uniquely different concept.’

Greg Berube ech’es that sentiment. ‘Jumping off the shelf means claiming the high ground as your own, so that everybody else is left to play catch-up.’

Strategies International, he notes, recently redesigned the packaging for Scotties facial tissues. Opting for the unconventional, the designers made the bottom of the box the face panel, which allows more room for branding and creates a stronger billboard effect on shelf. ‘Anybody else that d’es this now will just be perceived as a copycat,’ Berube says.

When the project brief calls for packaging that jumps out, designers will typically start by looking at color, since that’s the attribute consumers tend to notice first.

‘Illustration and photography help build confidence with consumers,’ says Chris Plewes. ‘But what gets their attention is dramatic color. And color contrasts ­ bright against dark, for example.’

Employing an unusual package format can also make a product stand out from its counterparts on the shelf, assuming such an approach is feasible from a manufacturing standpoint.

Plewes says that when Classico pasta sauces came out in old-style mason jars, it was a dramatic departure for the category that immediately attracted consumer attention.

‘It wasn’t bold, it wasn’t shrill,’ he says. ‘But it stood out as a unique proposition. Now, of course, everybody’s sauce is in a mason jar.’

Gary Oakley, senior director, creative graphics, with The Watt Design Group in Toronto, is another advocate of innovation in package formats.

‘Cereal is always in boxes; that’s the standard for the industry,’ he says. ‘If you put, say, a tin container amongst those boxes, you’re creating a visual point of difference. The consumer’s eye, tracking the shelf, will stop at something out of the ordinary.’

At present, Oakley says, cost is one of the major factors limiting the scope for the development of unique formats. But advances on the industrial design side may soon open up new possibilities.

Of course, even the most innovative design in the world counts for little if the product in question d’esn’t meet a genuine consumer need.

Last year, Nestle Canada introduced the Libby’s Real Fruit line of drinks to answer the desire for juices that don’t taste sugary and bland. The packaging created by Toronto’s Russell Design was a real eye-catcher: a shrink-wrapped bottle, covered with vivid illustrations of fresh fruit. But as Russell creative director Martin Batten observes, strong graphics wouldn’t have helped if the product weren’t relevant to consumers, or failed to deliver on its promise.

‘Packaging jumps off the shelf when it rings true,’ says Batten.

One pitfall marketers would also do well to avoid is assuming that bright, brash and busy design will stand out. As Stephen Candib, managing director, brand identity and packaging with Toronto’s Tudhope Associates points out, it ain’t necessarily so.

‘There’s so much noise and clutter out there that consumers train themselves not to notice things. Their receptors are turned way down. If, as a marketer, you can reduce the amount of noise in your little piece of real estate on the shelf, you may find it possible to break through the indifference barrier that’s been set up by a consumer under siege.’

In practical terms, what that means is that sometimes simplicity is the best attention-getter of all. When Tudhope overhauled the packaging for the Aunt Jemima line of pancake mixes recently, the designers deliberately stripped away as much information as possible, to simplify the proposition.

‘Research showed that consumers aren’t interested in a lot of complex information or lifestyle imagery,’ Candib says. ‘They simply want to understand what the product is and see clearly what flavor and preparation type they’re buying.’

Loud designs run the risk of conveying cheapness, cautions Sol Lang, president of Montreal-based Crayon Design & Communication. In some categories, he says, a sophisticated look may make more of an impression, simply because there’s so little else on shelf that shares that quality.

One of Lang’s favorites is a package Crayon developed for a salt shaker/pepper mill set from housewares manufacturer MSC Canada. What makes it distinctive, he says, is not the use of fluorescent colors or holographic paper, but rather the uncharacteristic subtlety and restraint of the design ­ an unusual, triangular box of corrugated cardboard, with four-color printing directly on the bare board.

‘Frankly, we find it easy to beat most designs on the shelf,’ he says. ‘Often, companies won’t spend enough on design and concept work. Which is why when you have something excellent, it really stands out.’

While breakthrough design may be in short supply, there’s no practical reason packaged goods manufacturers couldn’t be doing more of it. All that’s required, says Portofino’s Pedler, is a little more trust between marketers and package designers.

‘It all comes down to relationships,’ he says. ‘How open and honest are the two parties? Are you, as a designer, willing to push your client a little further than they want to be pushed? And are you, as a client, open to design suggestions that might not be what you expected? The best work will come out of strong, trusting relationships.’