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Innovative Packaging to Alleviate Competitive Threats: Lessons from Aleve®
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Some tremendous products don’t reach their potential in the marketplace due to inattention to packaging. Smart entrepreneurs in consumer goods, medical products, and other areas understanding that packaging not only governs much of the response of shoppers to your product on the shelf, but also can affect its value and function after purchase. Child resistant packaging is a classic example of this. Medications with child-resistant packaging can frustrate and irritate many consumers, and even lead to non-use of the product and failure to repurchase. Many child-resistant caps are hard top open for adults with limited mobility, hand injuries, arthritis, etc. Some frustrate strong, healthy adults, and have even led to injuries as people strive to pry a lid open with a tool.
One clever and perhaps under appreciated innovation in this space is the “Safety SquEase®” bottle developed by Procter & Gamble for Aleve® (now owned by Bayer), the over-the-counter (OTC) pain reliever that is the nonprescription strength of Anaprox® (naproxen). I held a bottle of Aleve® for the first time recently and was really impressed with how they combined ease of opening with child-resistance. Turns out there’s a real story of innovation behind this product, with at least three patents that I’m aware of:
- US Pat. No. 5,038,454, “Injection Blow Molding Process for Forming a Package Exhibiting Improved Child Resistance,” issued to Thornock et al., August 13, 1991.
- US Pat. No. 4,948,002, “Package Exhibiting Improved Child Resistance Without Significantly Impeding Access by Adults,” issued to Thorncock et al., Aug. 14, 1990.
- US Design Pat. No. D330,677, issued to Thornock and Goldberg, Nov. 3, 1992.
The system took years to develop and drew upon fundamental insights into the capabilities of children. Their inability to do two different things at once was the key insight that guided the clever, low-force development of Aleve®’s package. Rather than requiring high forces to be applied or complex operations that could frustrate many adults, the Aleve® package merely requires light force on two opposing tabs on the side of the bottle at the same time the cap is turned. Press gently with one hand, turn with the other: two different motions that stymie young children but are easy for adults. Looks like a minor packaking tweak, but the simplicity of the solution has extensive data and years of serious work behind it. Many elegant innovations are that way. Anyone can make something complex – it’s elegance that demands real brains and real sweat. Or grit, as some would say.
The Aleve® packaging system was the topic of a presentation to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on March 28, 1995 as part of their Safety Sells Conference, available online at http://www.cpsc.gov/businfo/6001.html. The presentation by Gordon F. Brunner, a Senior V.P. at Procter and Gamble, provides valuable insights on how packaging innovations can provide potent competitive advantage while solving critical real-world problems such as safety. Here is an excerpt from Grodon Brunner’s talk:
P&G developed and patented a new bottle closure, “Safety SquEase,” that meets government requirements for child-resistance. It also adds value and consumer satisfaction to a new P&G over-the-counter analgesic by making it easy to open for most adults, including senior citizens.
My case study concerns P&G’s patented new child-resistant closure, which we have named the “Safety SquEase.” One year ago this Thursday we were honored to receive the CPSC Chairman’s first-ever “Commendation for Significant Contributions to Consumer Product Safety” for our invention and marketing of this new closure.
The “Safety SquEase” closure has been used on bottles of Aleve, our new, long-lasting, over-the-counter analgesic drug, since its introduction last year. We have also begun using it on our Scope mouthwash product and will introduce it on our Vicks NyQuil and DayQuil cough relief products this coming fall.
To really convey how we developed the “Safety SquEase,” I need to give you the context. Two long-standing corporate policies had a major influence. The first was P&G’s policy regarding the human and environmental safety of its products and packages. The second was P&G’s stated corporate purpose to create and deliver products of superior quality and value that best satisfy consumer needs. . . .
The development of the “Safety SquEase” cap for P&G’s Aleve brand analgesic is an excellent illustration of our drive for product and package superiority. For those of you who haven’t heard about it, Aleve is the result of a joint venture between P&G and Syntax Labs. The aim was to introduce an over-the-counter version of Anaprox, a fast-acting sodium form of the medicine in Naprosyn. Naprosyn, sold by Syntax, had been the leader in the Rx non-steroidal anti- inflammatory drug market for a decade. The thinking was to do what had been done in the early ’80′s when Rx ibuprofen, led by Motrin, was converted into the Advil’s and Nuprin’s of today.
When used at over-the-counter (OTC) dosages, sodium Naproxen has advantages over acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin. . . . At the same time, we knew that our competitors in the highly contested OTC analgesics business would not take Aleve’s entry lightly. Consequently, we wanted to increase Aleve’s margin of superiority with consumers if at all possible.
Our packaging people thought they had an answer — develop a truly user-friendly child-resistant package. Child-resistant packages are required for products like Aleve to help prevent very young children from consuming toxic amounts out of curiosity. Personal experience, feedback from family and friends, and consumer research, however, told us that adults regarded existing child-resistant packages as hard to open. Read More→