The ongoing issue faced every day by marketers, business people and consumers alike is the extent to which design sways a consumer's buying decisions. The debate is never-ending - the package that makes designers cringe in disgust may actually outsell its competitor two to one. Loud and obnoxious images arrest people's attention, but the consumer is hungry for information. Package design can play a bigger role as a critical instrument in communicating real value and knowledge to help consumers choose one product over another.

In a recent packaging project we found that design became the critical element in communicating the value of a product and conveying the "why to buy" message to consumers.

Dataproducts, a division of Hitachi, wanted to enter the ink jet cartridge refill market as an aftermarket manufacturer of cartridges for Epson, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Canon and other printers. They saw the potential multi-million dollar ink jet printer aftermarket driven by the growing home ink jet printer user base. Since they already made laser printers and some ink jet cartridges for wholesalers, it was an easy step to enter this market.

BGDi was retained to create a brand identity to be applied to packaging for 37 products. The first big question we had to answer was: given the obvious cost savings, what kept consumers from buying the aftermarket replacement?

It boiled down to an issue of confidence. We did research at Office Depot and other major sellers of ink jet cartridge refills and found the biggest problem consumers ran into was an inability to identity the correct cartridge to replace the empty one they often had with them. They could not find a code number or picture of the cartridge on the package‹even those from the original manufacturer! Given this confusion, the average consumer could not confidently replace cartridges without assistance from store personnel.

We had a foundation for our design strategy: the three key items we needed to convey on the package were the type of printer the cartridge went in, the name of the original manufacturer and lastly, a picture of the actual cartridge. With these three elements in place any consumer could go into an Office Depot store, find the Dataproducts display and match theircartridge to the correct replacement.

The biggest butperhaps least tangible element we needed to define was the Data-products brand. We needed to create a consistent, memorable look for Dataproducts packaging so the consumer could easily remember and locate the brand. At the same time we needed to integrate the three key functional elements into the visual brand identity. The branding image we developed- a solid dark blue with a rainbow gradient-clearly separated Dataproducts from not only the other aftermarket sellers but the original manufacturers as well.

As a result, the Dataproducts product line, rolled out in late 1997, became an overnight success in the marketplace. Design played a critical role in conveying essential buying information and defining a distinctive brand.