Special effects on packaging grab the attention of consumers in the store aisle. But these visual tricks can do much more when they are part of an overall branding strategy.

Savvy brand marketers and package designers are using lenticular and holographic images on packaging in sophisticated ways to convey the brand's values and positioning.

By doing so, these special visual effects become integral to the brand. They also become part of the brand equity over time.

Three examples show how this approach works in packaging for over-the-counter pain and cold medications, a board game and golf balls.

Last year, Taro Consumer Healthcare Products launched a new brand of children's pain and cold relievers. Called ElixSure, the
product's major point of difference is its spill-resistant properties.

Accurate dosing is important to parents who want the product inside their child's mouth and not on the carpet or on the kid's clothing.

Taro touts ElixSure's spill resistance on the secondary packaging—a paperboard carton—through use of a lenticular lens on the front panel.

"Children's medications are a crowded category," says Bob Carraher, Taro's Group Vice President of Sales and Marketing. "Our packaging breaks through the clutter."

The lenticular graphic delivers two major benefits. First, it grabs the attention of consumers. Two images of a spoon flip back and forth as consumers pass by the product on the store shelf.

Carraher uses the term "winking" to describe this visual effect. "It may be subliminal at first with consumers asking, 'what is that?' But it makes them stop and look at the package."

This winking action intensifies with multiple products in a point-of-purchase display or when several ElixSure varieties sit next to each other on the shelf.

Second, the lenticular graphic demonstrates the product's unique attributes. One image shows a level spoon with product in it, while the other image displays the spoon tipped on its side. The product remains in the tipped spoon.

"We can show the spill resistance of the product through television advertising and in-store demonstrations," Carahher says. "Lenticular gives us the opportunity to demonstrate it on the package."

Moore Wallace supplies the cartons with lenticular lens. It prints the cartons sheetfed offset using a four-color process.

The 14-mil-thick lens is also printed sheetfed offset in four colors. It is then converted to a label and "tipped" onto the carton.

Many of the packaging design elements that made the Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition a success also appear on the packaging for the Trivial Pursuit DVD Pop Culture board game.

Hasbro—maker of the board games—wanted to establish a family look. But it faced a challenge.

Hasbro wanted the graphic of the DVD on the front panel of the carton to look like "the real McCoy." This image would stress the game's unique feature—an interactive DVD.

Hasbro turned to Proma Technologies, which created a custom hologram. Proma tweaked the hologram to produce a realistic DVD graphic, complete with the familiar brilliant and colorful rays of light.

Proma embossed the holographic image onto its HoloPrism paper.

Seneca Printing received a digital art file of the package design from Hasbro. Seneca prints the holographic paper sheetfed offset using opaque white inks followed by four-color process and a gloss coating. Patented print-to-register technology delivers crisp and accurately positioned graphics.

Seneca sends the printed sheets to Hasbro for conversion and laminating to paperboard cartons.

The resulting package stands out on the shelf and reinforces the brand promise of an interactive DVD game.

Shoppers can't tell if the image on the carton is a real DVD until they touch the package. And that's the whole idea. Consumers who pick up and examine a package put it in their shopping carts more than half the time.

Nike Golf illuminated the golf accessory aisle when it launched Power Distance golf balls in a holographic carton. Colorful rings spiral around a golf ball image on the carton's front panel. This radiating design conveys two product attributes—spin control and longer distance.

Nike uses a similar holographic pattern on packaging for a new brand of golf balls, called Mojo. But instead of communicating the product's traits, the rings complement the psychedelic graphics on the carton.

Alternating green and orange stripes emanating from a focal point decorate the carton's front panel. The Mojo name appears in metallic foil.

"It's a very bright and eye-catching package. With minimal advertising behind the launch of Mojo, it's the packaging that's selling the product," says Duncan Watson, Vice President of Marketing and Creative Services for Shorewood Packaging. Shorewood produces Nike's holographic cartons.

Many golf balls have come on the market recently for the high handicapper golfer. Mojo is Nike's entry into this category.

The product is designed to appeal to newcomers to the game, namely teenagers and "twentysomethings." Copy on the "retro" carton's front panel echoes this marketing strategy. It says, "Get long. Get feel. Get real." BP