Design better packaging

 I see some confusion about the term “packaging design” so I have decided to dedicate a few lines here to my personal definition.

 In general most packaging design I believe is controlled by advertising agencies and graphic designers who’s packaging design work in most cases consists of finding the best – existing – packaging to implement their new artwork on. You will find excellent examples of this category even on these pages.

In the more rare cases the design work even includes design of the packaging itself. This is where industrial designers – as myself – typically enter. 
The economic challenge here is much bigger, as a project normally includes heavy investments in new tooling for the manufacturing of the packaging. But the great advantage is the benefit of unique, second to none, design solutions which identifies the customers very specific needs and ideas. A great example of a company which enlives this attitude is ICI, now a part of Akzo Nobel. This packaging was developed as a co-work between ICI, Superfos and Tinhorse:

Another example is the further development of the SuperSeal design which I have mentioned before.
SuperSeal offers the advantage of having a sealable and pealable packaging with re-closure but without the need for a sealing foil.  An end-user test revealed that there was a need to improve the opening area to make it easier to understand how to open the pack. The following slides show how the corner opening has been transformed into a “curtain” grip, which is very easy to spot and which offers a good grip.

No need to say that customers also sometimes are confused, and have a hard time to find the right development partners.

The skills required to do these 2 kinds of packaging design are very different, but also several overlaps.
Both disciplines for instance call for extensive consumer empathy and behavoural insight.

So in the ideal world the two parties would sit around the table when a new packaging design is evolved. This is however far from the case in real life!
I wonder why?