Packaging

Los Angeles – An electronic musician reportedly planted 5,000 copies of his own CD inside fake copies of the Justin Bieber “Believe” CD in retailers including Best Buy, Target and Wal-Mart on April 1. According to the Associated Press, the musician, Paz Dylan, said he saw the stunt as more of a performance art piece than an April Fools’ Day prank.

Talk of nearshoring and a resurgent U.S. manufacturing sector weren’t enough to help the Stanley Furniture Company avoid shuttering a domestic manufacturing plant that employs 400 people.

Following steep losses last year, Stanley said it would close its 562,000-sq.-ft. facility in Robbinsville, NC., where ironically enough the company’s Young America line of Juvenile furniture was manufactured.

When brand marketers and agency executives gathered in Chicago recently for the annual Shopper Marketing Summit there was plenty of talk about mobile, social and digital, but there was one thing no one talked about.

Mobile is the hottest thing going right now so hardly surprising there was plenty of discussion about myriad ways apps can be used to engage, influence and activate shoppers on the path to purchase. Mobile continues to transform the path to purchase, overlooked in discussions of the shoppers’ evolving journey was the role of packaging.

Actress Sofia Vergara is launching her first scent, called Sofia by Sofia Vergara. The fragrance makes its debut exclusively with Home Shopping Network (HSN) at 12:01 a.m. April 24 and in key markets internationally, and rolls out to retailers nationwide in September.  

"Sofia by Sofia Vergara is designed for the woman who wants to feel irresistible and truly enjoys being a woman," said Vergara. "I wanted to bring a little bit of who I am, my ethnicity and create a fragrance that is a true reflection of me."
 

In recognition of shoppers’ desire for clean foods with minimal ingredients, Bumble Bee has introduced a new “Heritage Pack” with labeling reminiscent of the 1950s. Retailers may be inclined to say, “so what,” but there are several interesting aspects to the initiative.

Packaging changes among CPG companies are common in an industry where genuine innovation is hard to come by. So a new label, color scheme or pack size tends to elicit a big yawn from retailers.

The “AHH Effect” advertising campaign Coca-Cola launched last year with a social and digital first philosophy is getting a dose of old fashioned television this spring.
 

Most American’s missed seeing amputee Evan Strong win gold at the Paralympics in Sochi as Russian aggression toward Crimea and the Ukraine overshadowed the games. However, Strong gains another type of notoriety this Spring when he becomes the first para-athlete to grace the front of a Wheaties box.

The Hain Celestial Group introduced Garden of Eatin' Butternut Squash Corn Tortilla Chips. The gluten-free snack features a combination of butternut squash and organic yellow corn.

WWE Slam City is the name of a new kids-oriented entertainment property from sports entertainment producer WWE and Mattel.

The companies said WWE Slam City would include action figures and wrestling ring sets along with a 26 episode series of animated shorts featuring the WWE Superstars in the animated world of Slam City. The first four episodes have begun airing at WWESlamCity.com and Cartoonium on YouTube.

Atlanta – Close to half (45.1%) of brands reported that ‘measuring ROI and results’ is their greatest challenge when using the Twitter platform for marketing, followed by ‘building an audience’ (42.1%) and ‘engagement’ (36.8%). According to a new survey from Social Media Marketing University (SMU), 65% of brands say that Twitter is an effective marketing tool, while 30.6% are undecided. Other notable findings include: • 96.2% of brands using Twitter as a marketing tool report having challenges using the platform to achieve specific goals.