Shelf Space and Packaging of Toothpaste

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ompanies are known for paying top dollar to get ahead, and marketers have never been more creative in finding new ways of creating that little edge for their brands. Shelf location has been used for a long time to get the competitive advantage. The intuition is clear enough ‘the more likely consumers are to see your brand, the more likely they are to buy it’. In many countries competitive legislation prevent brand conglomerates from paying for the best shelf space. However, paying for the best shelf space is common practice in France as well as many other European counties. So what does the typical French toothpaste rack look like?

A typical set of racks

 

The distribution of toothpaste is quite easily interpreted. At Leclerc it seems that all toothpaste except the whiteners, has a full shelf dedicated to their brand. Among the whiteners it seems that Colgate, Signal and Email Diamant all pay more than Sensodyne to get the best brand space. This is of course assuming that Leclerc forces their suppliers to pay for their positions, which is an not to bold assumption.

Carrefour seems to use much of the same scheme as Leclerc. Again, we observe the horizontal bulks of brands standing side by side. The whiteners seems to also bulk together. A difference however, seems to be that Carrefour carriers a larger part whiteners. An element we also noticed at both Leclerc and Carrefour, is that upright plastic is placed at the top of the shelves, the paper cover tubes in the middle and the bare tubes get the lowest shelf places.

We can see that private labels are close to the French market leader Signal, so that people can easily compare the price. It is their only chance to sell the product as people usually buy branded toothpaste and not the one from the retailer. Moreover, all brands occupy the space proportionally to their market share.

• General Packing characteristics

Toothpaste packaging is an effective tool marketers use to convey their products features. In general packaging comes in three different varieties. 

The tall upright tube is often associated with the Aquafresh total toothpaste. Today, however, tall upright is available for most brands. The toothpaste the packaging is combined with is often marketed as high quality multi feature products. Retail prices are high for this kind of packaging.

Paper packaging is by far the most common packaging in Carrefour and Leclerc. The toothpaste often coupled with paper packaging is medium to high in price range. In general there is seemingly no toothpaste feature like fresh breath, white teeth, minty flavor, icing prevention or total protection, which is more common than others. Overall a paper packaging offers a tangible feel to the toothpaste than what a beat tube does, and it also offers more printable space. 

 

The last packaging option is the bare tube. It is often paired with low price toothpaste. Common toothpaste varieties are of a more core characteristics.

• Great Packaging Example

The Brazilian packaging design company Casa Rex recently got the challenge to redesign signals line in various markets. Casa Rex says that Signals old tubes where hard for consumers to interpret, they just lacked that ‘something’. The diagnosis was clear and the cure was eminent! Namely, color coding and illustration works forcing the consumers to understand the features of the products. Product features should be clear and quick to grasp.

• Creating Successful Packaging

Jenn David Design offers some great guidelines when evaluating good packaging design. First of all packing is not just labels it’s so much more, to effectively grasp it one should perhaps think of packaging as personalities. Who is Campbell’s soup tin, who is the original white on red Colgate? Do you know them? Are they friendly? Who would you introduce them to? All of these questions define the packaging, but the ultimate question is ‘was it love at first sight?’ Most products max get 2 to 3 seconds before they jay or nay, so in the very end it is all about love at first sight!

In short, the company gives the following rules of thumb to create love.

The store environment – a toothpaste rack delivers hundreds of marketing messages at once. How can your packaging help set the brands apart.

Communicate clearly and quickly – a product should differentiate itself from comparable substitutes in seconds, and yet be so comparable that consumers understand which segment it belongs to.

Being different – do something else than what your competitions design. Being bold is not always the answer, if everybody else has screaming packing it might be best to be quite.

Close the deal – packaging often helps to attract first time buyers, to go from first timers to repeaters the product must meet the needs of the consumer. If the product is a ill fit or just poor, few will buy it again.

• Loud, but great packaging

Even if marketers spend lots of time on toothpaste packaging, it is not exactly renowned for revolutionary design. However, there is one brand which really sets itself apart. Email Diamant clearly sets itself apart when it comes to packaging. With a Spanish matador greeting you and a bright yellow color it can be defined as quite unique.


Sources:

All images from Google Image
http://www.packagedesignmag.com/content/casa-rex-redesigns-toothpaste-packaging-unilever-germany
http://www.jenndavid.com/
http://www.packagedesignmag.com/content/dont-forget-basics-when-designing-packages/
http://blog.casarex.com/