Frito-Lay keeps chipping away for a better snack bag
- Filed in:
- Bags & pouches,
- Green marketing
In a holistic package design, the creative team examines each touch point at which the consumer will come into some sort of contact with a product. When packaging teams fall short on any consumer interaction with a packaged product, the results can be less than what the marketing department anticipated.
It’s difficult enough to design packages that deliver results at the point of purchase. But the impact of packaging sometimes is especially challenging at the point of use, and it’s this latter issue that really keeps creative teams, as well as R&D, on their toes.
These thoughts come to mind when considering Frito-Lay’s new flexible bags for its Sun Chips snack brand. The idea was to create a brand that’s easy on the environment, and for that, the company comes through in shining colors. The bags are made from biodegradable plant material. Moreover, a Wall Street Journal article says, the chips inside the bags are cooked with steam from solar energy. At the point of purchase, product and package are a complete win-win.
However, the outcome becomes somewhat murky at the point of use. According to the WSJ, some consumers dislike that the bags make a loud crinkly sound.
• An Air Force pilot, using a sound meter, determined the crinkling sound of the bags was louder than the normal range of noises in his jet’s cockpit.
• At one school, a teacher admonished a student for opening her chip bag too loudly.
On one hand, the noisy crinkle works as a marketing asset. Frito-Lay promotes Sun Chips as being “crunchy,” and the packaging certainly supports that perception. But here’s another consideration: Can packages such as this one also limit distribution channels for a brand? Would a very crinkly chip bag have distribution appeal in movie theaters, for example?
While acknowledging the bags’ sustainability and marketing benefits, Frito-Lay also says it is exploring options to soften the crinkle of its Sun Chips bags
This will be a fascinating development to watch. When a package meets sustainability objectives, can what makes it such a benefit in the first place also work against the brand in the context of overall consumer appeal?
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The noise is obviously a concern to many folks. I am much more disturbed about the need for weeks in a hot mulch for the bag to disintegrate. Think about the consumers of these chips. How many of them have access to such a disposal site?
I dare say, less than 1% so it is essentially a Marketing thrust. The concept of using plant sourced raw materials vs. oil is however SUPER. Maybe that is where the emphasis should be rather than discussing its degradability.
What about the more important fact that the bag failed to meet the ASTM standards for compostability because it was a 2 ply bag and the material just couldnt breakdown in the time allotment required for the standard. So in essence, its nothing more than greenwashing and yes its an obnoxiously loud bag.
while on a shopping trip this week end i stopped to pick up a bag of frito-lays product in the new bag. the noise was loud and it attracted another shopper to stop and comment on the sound coming from the bag.
we both commented on the noise and laughed. the person who stopped to join me did not know the product package was biodegradable however, and once told purchased the frito-lay product, sun chips.
she would not have stopped had i not been squeezing the bag. the noise may be another way to call attention the the brand. after all, it is a shouting match out there in the grocery store.
Mr. Esse notes that it is "...essentially a marketing thrust." The folks at Frito-Lay are nothing short of brilliant at marketing. It is not by accident that Frito chose Sun Chips to launch this green initiative with the "healty snacks" leader in their line.
But, as the product formulation is the same, unless organic gardeners make up 99% of the SunChips customer base, 1% access to a hot compost may be optimistic. Thus, I think "essentially" is inadequate to describe how much of it is marketing. More like 99.9999%.
The packages are noisy and annoying to me and several relatives personally, but In line with Mr. Didonato's thoughts, I'd wager that F/L is putting together an advertising play off that as you read this!
Think current Kit-kat commercials and the Alka-Seltzer comercials of old.
I would love to see some more changes with the packaging. I know there is a lot of different types that we need to look at. I think the ideas are definitely going in the right direction.
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