The holiday season is rapidly approaching and with it will come the annual zenith of gift giving. Generally, the gifting season brings feelings of goodwill and cheer, but, in this modern era of product packaging a negative phenomenon has been introduced due to the difficulty in opening those gifts. It is called wrap rage. Wrap rage is “the common name for heightened levels of anger, frustration and violence resulting from the inability to open hard-to-remove packaging.”
Thank goodness it now has a name. For years I have been plagued by the problem, not only at the holidays, but all year long and I didn”t know what to call my frustration. I just knew there were times when removing an item from its packaging was an exasperating ordeal. Consumers have even reported injuries such as cuts, bruises, sprains and muscle strains from opening product packages. And, every once-in-a-while the situation arises that adds insult to injury. Not only is a wound inflicted while opening a package, but during the process, the product is damaged, sometimes rendering it useless. That is when the aforementioned violence usually occurs.
Just a couple of years ago Consumer Reports, the product review magazine, created an annual award they titled the Oyster Award. They present them for the products with the “hardest-to-open packaging”. The name is based on the oyster being a “tight-jawed mollusk” that makes it difficult to get to the contents inside, just like modern product packaging often does.
The first-ever Oyster Award went to the Uniden Digital Phone. It took 9 minutes and 22 seconds to free the phone from its package. Second-place that year was the Barbie doll. She was tied to cardboard in 15 places. One person suggested leaving the packaging alone and renaming her Bondage Barbie. While it was humorous, it just wasn”t the child appropriate thing to do. For 2007, the Oral-B Sonic Complete Toothbrush Kit took home the top award. The plastic clamshell package was so hard and fitted so tightly around the product that even scissors were of no help.
Senior Editor at Consumer Reports, Tod Marks, said, “Consumers are increasingly frustrated with difficult-to-open packaging. As manufacturers create packaging that more aggressively discourages theft and tampering they are concurrently creating a package opening nightmare for many consumers.” Consumers reported to the magazine that they wind up using an arsenal of tools just to open a plastic package. Everything from pliers, kitchen and garden shears, hacksaws, can openers and even bolt cutters were mentioned. It sounds more like a list of jailbreak gear than what should be needed to open something purchased at the corner store.
In addition to the Oyster Awards, which have certainly provided some attention to the wrap rage problem and have sent product packaging designers back to the drawing board, there are other efforts taking place to help end the wrap rage era. Just in time for this year”s holiday gift giving season Amazon.com has created a program they are calling “Frustration-Free Packaging”. The initiative was launched November 3rd and it includes 19 of Amazon”s top selling products this holiday season.
Manufacturers such as Fisher-Price, Mattel, and Microsoft are involved. One successful example, announced at the unveiling, was a toy called the Imaginext Adventures Pirate Ship from Fisher-Price. Amazon”s package redesign cut out “36 inches of plastic coated wire ties, 1,576.5 square inches of printed corrugated package inserts, 36.1 square inches of printed folding carton materials, 175.25 square inches of PVC blisters, 3.5 square inches of ABS molded styrene and two molded plastic fasteners.” Perhaps Fisher-Price will now be able to lower the price so more parents can buy one for their kids.
It has taken years for product packagers to get things so wrapped up. The fix will not come overnight. I personally applaud Consumer Reports and Amazon.com for helping bring about positive change towards ending wrap rage, hopefully, in my lifetime.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. He can be reached at gdickson@record-bee.com or called direct at 263-5636 ext. 24.
