Week 7 Presentation

Presentation Slides and Speech

(Slide by Ash)

(Slide by Satina)

Slide one: What we heard (Written by Satina)

From the design question posed, we have chosen to focus on the branding, marketing and packaging of your product. The question we have formulated in response to yours and our area of focus is: How can we market flavoured water that will appeal to children, between 7 and 14, while reassuring their parents the product is healthy?

(Slide by Satina)

Slide two: Why are we doing this? (Written by Satina)

We posed this question because currently available waters are not marketed to children. They are predominantly the same packaging, a clear plastic bottle, and blue and white label which is not exciting to children. Also, children are targeted by marketing of big corporations,  such as coca-cola, to make poor choices. They are lead to believe these unhealthy products such as sports drinks, fizzy drinks and energy drinks are cool and will give them happiness. They use sports stars, movie characters and fast food chains offering collectable “prizes” to make children want their products. The result being tooth decay from over sweetened drinks, a global obesity epidemic and ongoing health issues such as diabetes. We want to design something children will be excited to buy, and reach for every time of their own volition. However, parents are still the gatekeepers to the lower end of the demographic. We need to assure them that they are setting up a healthy habit for their child without deducting from the whimsical aesthetic.

(Slide by Satina)

Slide three: Marketing to children (Written by Satina)

What we propose to do for you, is take some of these tried and true methods of marketing and use them to promote your product. From our research into marketing to children, we have distilled a few key things a successful children’s beverage needs. The packaging needs to be cool, fun, exciting, iconic, on trend and in a bright colour scheme to attract childrens’ eyes. The product needs to have interesting yet familiar, high impact, yummy flavours, bright colours and deliver a multi-sensory experience. The marketing and branding needs to simple, catchy, easily identifiable and appeal to both children and their parents. Also some kind of character, gimmick or collectable “prize” encouraging repeat purchasing, is advisable.

(Slide by Satina)

Slide Four: Concept inspiration (Written by Satina)

Here are some of the ideas we have been inspired by.

On the left we have a gimmick in which Selfie props are printed onto the bottles. Each flavour would have a different type of prop on it. These would be a fun way for children to interact with their friends, taking silly selfies. The advantage of this concept is it is fun for all ages.

The next idea is Create-a-story cards. This is based off a best award winning game crossed with a childrens’ trading card games. Each drink would come with a mystery card containing a character, location, action or object. These cards could be traded, used as a game, or as a starting point to create a crazy story to share with your friends.

Another option is Clever packaging design as a gimmick. These examples make the packaging into something exciting, through innovative designs. If we could create something eye-catching and awesome enough for the shelf, this could encourage children to reach for it without any other incentives.

(Slide by Satina)

Slide Five: Creative character inspiration (Written by Satina)

We found the idea of using a collectible character the most inspiring. These character examples utilise an element of the clever packaging design, where the bottle is turned or the can is stack to create different expressions or characters. For our characters, we are taking inspiration from existing children's characters. We are also looking at the idea behind the Unstable Unicorns kickstarter game, where Ramy Badie has taken the beloved child's image of a unicorn, and made it into something “cool” to appeal to an older demographic as well.

(Slide by Ash)

Slide Six: The Big Idea (Written by Ash and Satina)

Our big idea is to create an app game in which children will unlock playable characters, by purchasing the water and gaining a code to unlock the displayed character. These collectible characters, and their playability within the app, will create a cycle of repeat purchasing in order to gain new playable characters.

(Slide by Ash. Character design by Malaki)

Slide Seven: Branding, Characters, Colour (Written by Ash)

When people think of your drink we want them to think of ideas of a fun summer occasion, we have also taken into consideration a playful element, we wish to associate the brand with water and the various connotations that come with it, such as splashing. Besides the drink being fun and playful, we also wish to show  The logo will be big and bold to draw attention as well as incorporate our colour scheme. The Name for now will be a stand in as we continue to finalise the branding.

We have chosen to use characters that are not necessarily made from the fruits or flavours itself but characters that would make the drink look fun for kids. Each flavour would have different characters that represent each drink. We also thought of having the characters as a collectable online so the more drinks kids buy the more characters you get or they can also evolve their characters. We want to make these drinks look fun and cool so that older kids would buy it too. We would also have the characters in an adventurous environment so that kids are encouraged to be active. The characters that represent each drink is one of the important aesthetics of this product so that kids are attracted to it.

In terms of colour scheme, bright colours are what we are looking at. This would include various tones of blue in relation to our aesthetic with water, as well as bright colours representing each individual flavour. To create an attractive product we would like to mix complementary colours with each other

(Slide by Ash. Bottle sketches by Shawnee)

Slide Eight: Packaging (Written by Shawnee)

We have developed three concepts for the shape of the water bottle:

Concept 1 and 2 are based on the theme of nostalgia and have been designed with inspiration from 90’s glass fizzy drink bottles. These two concepts will be made from polyethylene as it is a more suitable option for kids than glass. This also means it's recyclable and lightweight to cut down on energy costs involved with transporting the product.

Concept 3 is an aluminium can with a reuseable lid. Using aluminium means that children will not be able to see the water in the bottle. The can design also allows a large area for branding and advertising which will hopefully entice the kids to choose this product over unhealthier options. Aluminium is also infinitely recyclable and the design of the cans means they are stackable which will save space and thus energy and cost during transport.

Presentation Feedback - SZ

Bevlab didn't have a lot of questions. Whether that is because we explained things well and they understood, or they were uninspired by our idea and presentation remains to be seen.

The things we were told to address were:

• Concerns over costing of packaging.

Bevlab expressed concerns over costing of packaging. This could make or break the product and determines the affordability of the product, and ultimately their profit margin. The product is cheap to produce, the cost of production is in the packaging design and materials. As far as innovative packaging goes, it will have to be done through the printed image rather than through the shape or gimmicks that will add extra cost.

• What age range of their overall demographic are we focusing on?

They had concerns about the characters being too babyish for children over 8 years old. This is something we had already been looking at, and why we moved away from the fruit design. Our focus now is on characters based off things like pokemon and neopets which appeal to a wider and older age range. Perhaps we need to show a range of characters to get this across.

• How often would new characters need to be released? What is the life cycle of the characters?

To this they proposed a 6 month window, but with the idea of gaining the displayed character this would be far too long. Again this comes down to costing to produce new characters. We didn't explain in the presentation but it would be just the character that changed not the whole packaging design. I guess that would still be a large cost to re-program the machines that make the cans/bottle labels, and they wouldn't be saving as much by bulk ordering.

A possible solution to extend the period between releasing new characters is using mystery system where a range of characters are displayed but the unlocked character is unknown (like with the petrol stations smurfs), utilizing commons and rares to make the full set harder to collect. To increase app usage the children would get a code only, then login and enter it to reveal their character. If the code is a double up, perhaps there is an option to give the code to a friend, keep it as an unhatched [species name here] egg to be traded or unlock things for your character when you get a double up? Maybe you unlock a different colour for that character, or an accessory. Or you could unlock real life digital things like avatar images and home screen wallpapers.

• Sustainability and recyclability in the packaging materials

Bevlab seemed quite impressed with Shawnee's work into possible packaging materials that are not only recyclable but also minimize shipping cost and energy usage. This was great feedback.

Presentation Analysis

Ways we could improve the presentation:

• Make sure the slides are in the right place and working before the presentation
• Try and be more off script
• Make sure the presentation slides and the dossier match for colour schemes, typefaces, layouts etc
• Ensure the whole team makes it to the presentation
• Have things prepared earlier so we look more professional
• Have a plan for who will field the questions

Research - Character

Fruit With Personality

This is the level we are at now (illustration by Malaki)

Which is much like this level of kawaii cute but I think the Fruit needs a little bit of personality to be "cool" and appeal to a wider range of ages and both genders.

This is more of the level I think we need to be at if we are sticking with personified fruit. Something with personality and attitude. Something "cool" and a little bit more middle of the age demographic. I can't find any images but the yoghurt ad with the fruit skateboarding over the punnet, i think something like that would appeal more.

(images below sourced by Maddie)

Case Studies

Cookie Time Monster

Its fun, its simple, its friendly and easily identifiable. 

It plays on the sesame st cookie monsters. I really like how they use the real cookie with the illustration, the monster is interacting with the product therefore young children who mimic behaviour want to engage with it too.

Their typeface combination is a fun, quirky sans serif in monster fur coupled with a very legible penciled handwriting to be relatible to children. Sleek designer typefaces are too sophisticated and cold/sterile.

The last image is an example of creative packaging which uses a clear window to show the product and overlays a printed image to make it creative.

Cookie Bear

Griffin's has taken the beloved teddy bear to endorse their biscuits. It has a nostalgic value for adults, associated with fond memories of being comforted by their favourite childhood teddy bear, attending teddy bear picnics, and they would want to share these memories with their children.

He has a simple catchphrase Dum-de-doo. He is jolly and cheerful, bringing smiles to children's faces. part of the marketing which popularized him was a cookie bear club, and a children's story book.

He would definitely suit a younger audience. When it becomes uncool for children to take a teddy bear to a sleep over, and before he becomes part of nostalgia he would be an ineffective character type to use.

Minions

The beauty with Minions is the appeal is wide spread through a large demographic. I would put this down to the cheeky personalities. They are essentially little monsters.  Universal studios has taken pixars idea of making childrens movies tolerable for adults by using  different levels of humour.

My little Pony

A great way to market to young girl's is through mythical fairytale creatures like unicorns, Pegasus, fairies and mermaids. 

My little pony has evolved their characters over the years to keep up with the current trends. I found it quite funny how the eyes of the ponies have gotten bigger and bigger over the years. The colours also went more vibrant in the 90's but seem to have gone more pastel in the current versions. This would be something to keep in mind for the colour scheme for our product.

Unstable Unicorn Kickstarter Game

Ramy Badie has taken this beloved unicorn character and made it into something really cool. This campaign has closed now amassing over 1 million dollars in pledges, presumably from people of a range of ages and genders as well as cultures.

The artwork has a range from cute to dark, sweet to full on attitude. For me it was the artwork that sold the game, and its nostalgia value for my little ponies.

Big Eyes = Cute

Neopets

Evolution of virtual pets

Neopets, like pokemon, has been around for decades. They seemed to be based on the idea of tamagotchi. They are virtual pets you had to earn money by playing games to feed. you

Neopets history

Monsters

Monsters are an enduring theme throughout childrens books, movies, tv series and toys. Perhaps these are used to stop children fearing the monsters under the bed or in the closet. They are generally portrayed as cute, cuddly and friendly, with large eyes and cheeky personalities. 

The bonus to monsters is there is an endless number of creations you can make. You are only limited by your imagination. Both genders can be targeted by them. Girls will like cute creatures based on animals, with big eyes, wings and floppy ears. Where boys would more likely be drawn to grosser, slightly scarier versions, with claws, horns and big teeth. These would be more based on sharks, dinosaurs, reptiles and insects.

(pictures below found by Maddie)