CASE STUDY # 4

NASOYA FOODS (REDESIGNED PACKAGING FOR TOFU PRODUCTS)

John Paino is president of Nasoya FoodsInc., a Leominster, Massachusetts, firm that is the country’s largest
marketer of tofu products. Its annual sales are about $6 million.

Not long ago, after seeing that a $500,000 expenditure on radio advertising was ineffective, Paino decided
that his firm needed to pay increased attention to its packaging. As he said then, “Your package sells for 24
hours a day, as it sits on the shelf”. He also felt that a distinctive, attractive packagewould give consumers
the impression that this firm was larger than it was, that it would increase the believability of Nasoya
promotional efforts and then it would enable the firm to raise its prices.

Paino decided to hire Selame design (a marketing specialist) to evaluate Nasoya’s existing current
packaging, suggest improvements, and develop a new packaging program. At the time Selame Design was
hired, Paino was still trying to get supermarket shelf space for its products. Prior to that time, most of
Nasoya’s sales came from health-Food products. Selame Designs analysis of Nasoya’s tofu-based salad
dressings and mayonnaise found that the packaging contained conflicting typefaces (fonts), cluttered labels,
and hard to read written materials. Overall, the packaging was unattractive. Nasoya’s packaging was clearly
violating many of Selame’s principlesfor “The Right Design”, such as,

State the benefit – simply: Good packaging should stress 2-3 important features of products or
company’s selling points. Other points should incorporate into either fine print or the back of the
package.
Keep it clean: Good packaging avoids visual clutters.
Beconsistent: use common design elementsin advertising, on letter head, on business cards, and on
delivery trucks, to develop and reinforce total image.

While studying Nasoya’s packaging, Paino also felt that health food store shoppers are willing to read every
aspect of the package label, supermarket customers were not. After consultations with Selame Design, John
Paino understood that “our underlying idea was to create a label that appeal to people likely to be our
customers, folks (people) interested in “all natural” but not necessarily health-food fanatics. Intuitively we
knew they were probably well educated, with a lot of money. So we wanted a label that was colorful, friendly,
and upscale”.

The resulting package label incorporated the desired elements. A checkered tablecloth, the type found in
many family restaurants, was put in the background. The design element had both fun and friendly
connotations. The text on the package was modified to state that the product is 100% cholesterol free and
fewer calories than traditional products. Nasoya’s former package label stated that its tofu was derived from
soybeans that were organically grown in well water. This information is placed in other areas on the new
label.For example, the tofu content of Nasoya’s mayonnaise type product and salad dressings was put on
the back of the label. And information as to how the tofu was grown was placed in tiny print on the ingredient
list.
The name of the mayonnaise type product was changed from Nasoyanaise to Nayonaise, later on, the
NASOYA name was totally removed from the front of the package label. As John Paino noted , Nasoyanaise
told people told people what the product was and who we were, but it was too long and too hard to say. The
product hadn’t been outthere all that long, so we didn’t worry about confusing people. The elimination of
Nasoya name from the front label to stress the product’s benefits. As a result of the packaging changes,
Nasoya’s mayonnaise-type product’s sales rose by 50% and salad dressing sales rose by about 30%.

QUESTIONS

1. Comment on this statement “figuring their package is the only chance to communicate directly with
end users, small companies usually try to cram as much as possible onto it”.
2. Evaluate Nasoya’s old and new packaging design from the perspective of the consumers.
3. How does Nasoya’s change in the distribution strategy (from health-food stores to supermarkets)
affect the relative importance of the packaging importance?
4. Should Nasoya use a family packaging strategy? Explain your answer.