On behalf of the entire team at PRICE, I would like to welcome you to our very first monthly e-newsletter.

Each month, our goal will be to provide you with marketing and design insights that we hope you'll find fresh, entertaining, and educational.

For the past 15 years, we've had the good fortune to work with many great companies and leading brands. As a result, we've become experts at designing marketing communications and packaging for businesses whose customers use and enjoy interactive entertainment and technologies.

In each issue, you'll find articles that will help you as a marketing professional. For example, our "Anatomy Of A Box" feature allows you to peek inside the minds of our design experts to learn what made a specific packaging design or campaign successful -- or not.

I hope that you enjoy reading "Outside The Box" and look forward to receiving it in your in-box each and every month.

Please feel free to send me an e-mail by clicking on my name below. I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time ...

Joe Cerbo
President
PRICE Design

Don't just let your brand, well, happen. Karen Post, "the Branding Diva," makes the case for becoming a "brand warrior" and developing a brand that is compelling, unique, and memorable.

Every single living entity in the business world has a brand. Brands happen when a company takes its first breath. When it opens its doors, sets the sales troops loose on the battlefield, prints the business cards, and handles the first stressed-out customer, it is developing a brand.

The brand is the by-product of all of one's actions -- the sum of what an organization, person, or product does. How you behave, communicate, and respond to the unexpected are part of your brand.

Brand by default happens every day.
For a lucky few, this track works out fine. Just do your stuff. The market gets your deal. They like you and life goes on.

The average brand is not so lucky.
Most companies, however, need to invest up front in soul searching, clearly define their story, create a game plan, and work it until it is vividly tattooed on the minds of their buying market.

Sounds simple. So why is it that, in just about every category, there are clusters of lame, boring brands? You may know some or, then again, you may not because they blend in, have no distinct anything, and even burn through big bucks telling the market how dreadfully boring and similar they are to at least a handful of their competitors.

Great branding takes balls.
This is not a body part, but an attitude available to both male and female business leaders. Guts, gumption, and fearless fiber -- got to have them to find the big brand glory.

The tragic news is that a lot of companies get the process. Their leaders read books, attend seminars, and admire other great brands. They know to be a really cool, memorable brand, you've got to stand for something and be distinct. But when it comes down to their brand, the real distinction phobia sets in, causing brand nothing.

Do they dread peer resistance, experience a guilt trip over industry betrayal, or just convince themselves that the risk outweighs the reward? Possibly a mix of all -- in any case, they are brand-debilitating malfunctions.

Corporate therapy is an option. Or just read on ...

Click here for complete article.

Q: In your opinion, what makes one package stand out on a retail shelf over another?

A: Once upon a time, everybody was making wacky-looking boxes of different shapes and sizes, but the Wal-Marts of the world have put an end to all that and much of today's packaging has become standardized in terms of size. So the challenge is to catch the eye using other means.

My best suggestions are to make certain the package has a central focus and that it's a quick read. The logo or title of the product needs to be very legible. An interesting font or graphic treatment must convey what the product is all about.

Centralizing the focus can also involve a main character. If it's a game package, show the hero and make sure he or she is really dominant in the space. Be bold, be direct. Big and colorful jumps out at you. A convoluted pattern of tiny characters is poison.

We also like there to be some depth to the image; there needs to be something to see in the background, perhaps some of the story line. It's this secondary layer of information that makes the box more robust, and gets you to stop and read rather than just glance and walk away.

It's important to always check out the competition to see what they've done ... and then try to do just the opposite so your package doesn't blend on the shelf. You want to be in the club, but you want to stand out and be the star player. When Electronic Arts used white boxes for their sports games, we used black boxes for Microsoft's sports games. You have to be really careful not to look like a me-too. You want to say, "Here's our game. Come and try it!"

Brian Kruse, PRICE's senior art director, talks about the boxes for Microsoft Game Studio's "Zoo Tycoon" franchise -- which included "Zoo Tycoon," and the "Dinosaur Digs" and "Marine Mania" expansion packs. The initial release was one of the Top 10 best-selling PC titles in 2001 and both expansion packs were in the Top 10 as well. The franchise has surpassed the 2-million-units sold mark in the U.S. alone and over 4 million worldwide.

• The biggest challenge. It's not to sell the game because, frankly, we have no control over its quality. Instead, our aim is to get gamers to pick up the box, flip it over, and read all about the contents. Hopefully, there's enough information on the box and it's visually appealing enough that the gamer will want to try it out.

• "Tycoon" warning. Our biggest concern was that there were already a ton of different "Tycoon" games out there. That made it important to Microsoft to use the word "Tycoon" in the title because it provided instant recognition; gamers looking for a sim game knew exactly what sort of game this was. On the other hand, we didn't want "Zoo Tycoon" to look like any of the other "Tycoon" boxes. Frankly, some of them looked awfully cheesy. And when the box looks cheesy, gamers are likely to think the game is too.

• Let's build a franchise. Knowing that Microsoft had plans to build a franchise, it became important to create a really strong branding of the name "Zoo Tycoon." That's why we made the logo bold and substantial -- and against the pure blue background, it really pops.

• You're my hero. Because the game is all about building a zoo, we felt it was important to use animals as the central heroes. After much debate, we decided on using an elephant which is big, friendly, and not too threatening to the game's young audience.

• It's a zoo in here. We branded the logo as the gateway into the zoo, which I think really helped define the front of the packaging. At the same time, I think our choice of illustrator was a really good one. His work is realistic -- but it's not too realistic, which would give the game the "National Geographic look" we were trying to avoid. And because we wanted the game to appear to be lots of fun, the animals on the package have human-like expressions on their faces. It gives the look a very sophisticated kind of "wink." While the kids might think the elephant is really cool, parents might smile at it and say, "Gee, is that elephant grinning at me?" And they'll appreciate that.

• Creating a flap. I firmly believe that the flap that we built into the packaging had a lot of impact. It helped us explain much more of the game since we had more real estate than just the front and back of the box. But, even more importantly, when people open up a flap, I believe it has a value-add feel to it. It makes the box seem more important; it's almost as if, because the publisher spent more money on the box, perhaps they also spent more money on building the game.