Time for a new product packaging paradigm . . . Boomer style
It started years ago with Tylenol bottles. Some misfit idiot decided to adulterate the product at the plant and now an entire industry is dedicated to keeping us from opening and using the things that we purchase.
Old dogs like me begin to notice prescription bottles require simultaneous squeezing, grunting and cussing to conquer. By the time you swallow the pills, you’ve developed a new arthritic joint to accompany the original ailment. Sure, you can request the arthritis caps, but that requires that you remember to ask for it, and then you have to be careful you don’t spill the whole bottle at the breakfast table and watch your dogs go into overdrive chasing the things all over the floor.
Let us not forget challenging food containers. Long before we became eligible for Social Security and Medicare, we considered hiring someone to come over at meal preparation time just to open the bottles that are packaged to protect us from evil people and unnecessary contamination. When you finally get the paper peeled off the salad dressing bottle, you discover that there’s another seal inside! Or, you develop a hernia trying to open a jar of pickles.
At our house, now that a strong-armed son is no longer residing with us, we have developed a system of teamwork for these difficult jar situations. One of us holds the jar, while the other positions this Craftsman tool, normally used in removing oil filters in cars, on the lid. We turn the jar and the tool in opposite directions. That usually does the trick. When it doesn’t, we try the butter knife under the edge of the lid or run hot water to expand the lid. Sometimes we just turn the dang thing upside down and give it few slaps on the bottom, which sometimes breaks the seal.
A better entrepreneur than I could get rich by developing an online course and charging for lessons in breaking the packaging barrier. I would almost pay for instructions in getting into the worst packaging on the planet. I’m referring to the kind that surrounds electronics. These supreme foils to consumer penetration of new products almost require getting out the tin snips or bolt cutters. While I can appreciate the fact that they are designed with the shoplifter in mind, the hard plastics can only be penetrated by cutting, and that leads to a huge likelihood of slicing a hand, either with plastic or the scissors.
We were just following the dentist’s orders today when we purchased an electric toothbrush. It took us 30 minutes to break it out of its injection molded plastic jail. Flossing would have been much less expensive and not nearly as dangerous.
Is there anywhere on this planet where one can purchase a product without packaging that costs as much as the item it protects? Remember when talcum powder came in a can? When over-the-counter medicines were sold in glass bottles? How about the days when Coke was sold in glass bottles and milk was delivered by a mailman to your doorstep in clear glass, unless you went right to the dairy and brought along your own gallon jar?
I guess I might as well admit that I am old and nostalgic and no longer able to use my hands for some mundane chores. But there are quite a few of us Baby Boomers and we represent a sizable market segment. Can no one see the potential profit in catering to us with some innovative boomer packaging?
