Modern Drug-stores A New Hotbed Of Packaging Innovation
By Shaun Smith
General Apple iPod Arm & Hammer Baking Soda Aspirin Express Pack hydraSense Hydrating Nasal Care Krazy Glue Wrigley•••
As a life-long chewing-gum addict, I’ve been like the proverbial ‘kid in the candy-store’ as of late, trying out a whole new slate of flavorful gums hitting the store-shelves in recent months. While most of them have their merits in terms of flavor and taste, the packaging for the Wrigley’s 5 from Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company puts it a couple of notches up over the competition. With its matte finish, textured front and spot-gloss printing, the sleek black cardboard box is one hot little number, but what really takes the cake is the flip-up top that reveals 15 sticks of gum wrapped in shiny foil. The package’s resealing tab is one of the most elegant bits of paper engineering I’ve come across lately, and while the brand-name’s implied attempt to awaken all five senses may seem oddball (I’m still not sure what gum is supposed to sound like), the neat new package is a fair-enough reward in itself.
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It seems like ages ago since someone figured out that putting an open box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda inside the fridge is a great way to absorb food odors. So while it may be long overdue, kudos to the folks at Church & Dwight Co. for finally waking up to a great new packaging opportunity their product has been crying out for all this time. At first glance, the box for the new Arm & Hammer Fridge Freezer Flo-Thru Deodorizer looks a lot like the old one, with same orange coloring and the same arm-and-hammer brand logo. But it’s a whole new story inside the box, where the soda is now packed inside a gauze bag that lets the air pass through like a tea-bag—requiring the consumer only to tear the perforated back and front panels off the box to make it all happen.
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I snore … or so I’m repeatedly told. Without going into the gory details, let’s just say that imperfect genetics have left me with a nose that sometimes refuses to breathe properly during sleeping hours. Always eager to get all the help I can get to alleviate this condition, I have recently turned to using the hydraSense Hydrating Nasal Care potion from Schering-Plough. While the product itself is nothing but boring old sterilized sea water that you squirt up your nose to clean it out, the package that does the squirting is something of a marvel. Incorporating four components—a flexible case made of polymerized PET; a latex pocket; a rubber jacket; and a plastic bottle sealed with a one-way valve—the hydraSense package actually forces the three internal layers to expand when the sea-water is pumped into the PET case, and contracting them when the water is forced out by depressing the nozzle on the valve. Designed to inhibit the counterflow of foreign matter into the PET pocket, this contraption has not stopped me from snoring, but it has given me new appreciation for the role of smart packaging design in medical devices.
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