Cole Latimer Logisticsmagazine.com
A new survey by the US Cox School of Business revealed that 80% of people claim to have suffered frustration, anger, and even rage over poorly designed packaging. “Wrap rage” or “packaging rage” was first identified as early as 1998, and was even voted the most useful word of 2007 by the American Dialect Society.
The survey attempted to look into the long term impacts that packaging can have on a product and a brand.
It found that four out of five people lost it over packaging that many times packaging was difficult to open and/or only by using a tool, was susceptible to breaking or tearing, could not be re-closed, failed to keep the product fresh, caused injury while opening or simply too much packaging was used.
The most hated list includes plastic bags which tear apart at the drop of a hat or difficult packaging that “can only be opened using a soldering iron”.
Ring pulls that tear off instead of opening the can, multi-layer foil lids which crack, tear-off strips that only tear themselves apart also made the top of the list for driving consumers mad.
In fact a study by the US Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that attempts to open packaging caused around 6500 emergency room visits in the US in 2004 alone.
Only one type of packaging managed to get predominately positive however – resealable packaging.
Provalin, a manufacturer of resealable packaging and PVC packaging explained that “this was likely due to packaging and closures which succeed in keeping the product fresh, edible and genuine for a long time”.
“It can be assumed therefore that glass jars are very popular,” it added, “particularly when the closures are free of PVC and consumers can be sure that there are no interactions between the contents and the closure seal, as is possible using our PVC-free PROVALIN closure seal”.
The seal is the world’s only sealant compound free of PVC and plasticisers.
Packaging rage in action.
