I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!

The introduction of upside-down plastic bottles by Heinz in the late 1990s was a milestone moment in the history of CPG packaging. I mean what consumer had not felt the frustration of trying to get ketchup out of a right side up bottle? Certainly consumers had concocted their own personal rituals on how to solve this sticky situation - from the “downward thrust” method of violently jerking the bottle down to the famous “stick the knife in the bottle” trick.

No matter what ritual you adopted, the problem of getting ketchup out of the bottle was universal. That’s why the upside-down squeeze bottle was such a great piece of innovation. It created a solution for a real consumer need.

This great piece of structural innovation did not come overnight. And its roots stretch outside of the food category—to the Health and Beauty industry. It took learnings from HBA “tottle” packaging (the first child of the tube and bottle) relative to the dispensing of viscous fluids such as shampoos, conditioners or lotions and applied them to the development of an inverted squeeze plastic bottle for dispensing ketchup.

But what happens when a great solution for one consumer need creates a new problem that, to this day, no one has effectively addressed? And why would other manufacturers continue down the same path without addressing it while promising consumers that their upside-down pack is more convenient and easier to use than its right side up predecessor? As I look across the alphabet of consumer products, I see virtually every letter offering up at least one upside-down product from BBQ sauce, to dish detergents, to mayonnaise, to scrubs, to Vaseline. All these packs have the same problem.

I look at this new array of upside-down brands I often find myself saying - why? When will someone address the problem?

So what is the problem I’m referring to? It’s like this.

Since the top of these upside-down packs are wider than the cap at the base they tend to be top heavy and therefore very unstable. So unstable that they tend to fall over quite easily. In fact every time I open my refrigerator I see one lying down on the shelf. At first I thought maybe it was taking a nap, but I have come to realize it simply fell over.

So I have come up with my own term for these top-heavy creations. I call them “wottles” which I describe as a wobbly alternative to a stable pack. Or if the pack could talk, it would say, “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up.”

Excuse me but I have to go now. I just heard something fall over in my refrigerator – again!

It makes no Brand Sense; it’s really…Brand NonSense.