The seven plays
This week, seven CPG brands changed the package instead of the product. Jif ran its first major brand refresh in more than 30 years, dropping the wordmark’s shadow, reviving the tri-color banner, and renaming Jif To Go to Jif Dippers so the pack sells an all-day snacking occasion rather than a sandwich. 7UP turned its logo vertical, deleted the bubbles and citrus wedges, and put the flavor name above the mark so a lime-first reformulation would actually register at shelf. Crown Royal handed Juicy Couture its purple drawstring bag and got it back in rhinestoned velour in three colorways matched to its flavored whiskies. Kleenex split a commodity tissue into two skin types, niacinamide for oily and combination and glycerine with Hokkaido milk for dry and normal, and walked a paper brand into the beauty aisle. Bath & Body Works put its Preserve candles under jam lids with hand-painted artwork. Heinz sold the closure by itself, a $3.78 retrofit Love Lid with three flow rates named Like, Love and Crazy Love, without changing a single production bottle. Budweiser aged a lager with MLB-authenticated beechwood baseball bats and printed the provenance on the can.
The pattern across all seven: a wordmark, a hierarchy, a bag, a segment, a lid, a closure, a substrate. Every one is a packaging decision, every one shipped this quarter, and not one required a new fill line. Pack Pulse is 3D Color’s weekly read on what shipped and the play to borrow from each launch.
What is Pack Pulse?
Pack Pulse is 3D Color’s weekly read on the packaging that just shipped, broken down into the specific plays CPG brand and design teams can borrow. Each issue identifies recent launches and the strategic move behind them.
What packaging moves shipped the week of August 17, 2026?
Seven: Jif’s first major brand refresh in more than 30 years with Jif To Go renamed Jif Dippers, 7UP’s vertical logo and lime-first reformulation, the Crown Royal and Juicy Couture velour bag collection in three flavor-matched colorways, Kleenex Beauty Tissues split into Oily & Combination and Dry & Normal skin types, Bath & Body Works’ Preserve candles under jam lids, the Heinz Love Lid sold as a standalone $3.78 retrofit cap, and Budweiser Beechwood Reserve aged with MLB-authenticated baseball bats.
Why did Jif change its packaging without changing the recipe?
Because the brand’s constraint was occasion, not awareness. Front-of-pack photography that only ever showed a PB&J taught shoppers one use, in one daypart, for one age group. Swapping that imagery for apple slices, celery and pretzels buys additional eating occasions, and renaming Jif To Go to Jif Dippers replaces a container word with a behavior word. Both ship with artwork the brand was already printing.
What makes the Crown Royal and Juicy Couture collaboration different from a typical co-brand?
It lends the partner an asset rather than a logo. Crown Royal’s drawstring bag is secondary packaging consumers already keep, so handing that surface to a partner built on the same velour nostalgia produces a limited edition that lives in a soft good. The bottle mold never changes, and color-coding each bag to a flavor means the collaboration doubles as shelf navigation.
How can CPG teams pressure-test a packaging move before it prints?
A production-matched comp is the standard tool. It replicates how the finished pack will read at shelf, in-hand, and in launch photography before any tooling, printing, or retailer commitment is made. The comp is the lowest-risk place in the system to find out whether a move lands.
Bob Jennings is CEO of 3D Color, which produces production-matched packaging comps, prototypes, and sales samples for more than 250 CPG brands. Pack Pulse is 3D Color’s weekly read on the packaging that just shipped. Reach Bob at bob.jennings@3dcolor.com to pressure-test a packaging move before it prints.