Oversized Package Under Axe

A perfect example of Consumer awareness was witnessed when a consumer lodged a complaint against Cincinnati-based consumer giant P&G for violating California’s slack fill law, resulting P&G to shell out $850,000 towards civil penalties and costs. Moreover, Company is forced to change packaging of its entire line of Olay skin-care products as part of a settlement with California prosecutors, who had accused the company of misleading consumers by selling jars of face cream in packaging that was at times much larger than the contents. On 26th June, 2015 Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said P&G was violating California's "slack fill" law.

Slack-fill is the difference between the actual capacity of a container and the volume of product contained therein. According to the act a container that does not allow the consumer to fully view its contents shall be considered to be filled as to be misleading if it contains non-functional slack-fill.

Non-functional slack-fill is the empty space in a package that is filled to less than its capacity for reasons other than:

1. Protection of the contents of the package;
2. The requirements of the machines used for enclosing the contents in such package;
3. Unavoidable product settling during shipping and handling;
4. The need for the package to perform a specific
5. The fact that the product consists of a food packaged in a reusable container
6. Inability to increase level of fill or to further reduce the size of the package

In case of Olay, It has been found that a 1.7-ounce jar of higher-end moisturizer Olay Regenerist Luminous, for example, retails for around $35 and comes in a box that’s more than twice the size of the box containing a 2-ounce jar of Olay Active Hydrating cream, which retails for around $10. Well, this incidence proves that a small mistake can leads to the worst result. And new generation Packaging developers need to work closely with the marketing as well as regulatory bodies to curb such blunders. It's an alarm for organisation all around the world, not to produce such package which throws out wrong representation of the product in term of quantity, quality or any other attribute. It also illustrates that how much effect a Packaging leaves on consumers mind and at the same time it shows a bright side of consumer awareness, allowing consumer to make right choice and not to be deceived by Packaging. (Source- Data & Pictures referred from news websites)