Hershey's is a respected family-friendly chocolate and candy maker with a long history of positive karma. Not too long ago, though, they got some bad karma when they created a negative public stir with their Ice Breakers® Pacs™ product - a breath freshening melt-in-your-mouth packet filled with flavored powder. The reason? The product format is almost identical to street drugs.
The product was recently recalled due to the above issue.
I think Hershey's would not have designed the product this way intentionally - it would only serve their brand negatively. Most likely, the product was an innovation based on the melt-in-your-mouth breath strips like Listerine PocketPacs®. Powder-filled candy is nothing new, either, and has been around for decades. Combining the two should make for an innovative and fun product. Unfortunately, the similarities to street drugs were too compelling and blighted the product.
Sterling Anthony writes for Packworld about the ramifications of Hershey's packaging format misstep and its perils, pointing out what we can learn from their experience. Brand managers and packaging designers alike can learn a lot from this insightful article.
Read the article on Packworld here.
(Note: The design was created by Tetsuya Takenomata. I think the design itself it perfectly on-target for the demographics (tweens/teens) and was well-designed. The critique here refers to the packaging/product format only - not the branding or graphics.)
