The last year-and-a-half of challenges and uncertainty has taken the bloom off even the freshest of brand concepts. Even those who’ve managed to scrape out success in this climate are scrambling for ideas to keep it going.

Enter the PACKAGING THAT SELLS conference, a day-and-a-half seminar-style event on September 16 and 17 in Chicago. Chock full of inspiration, we’ve brought together innovation gurus like P&G’s former change agent Claudia Kotchka and visionaries like Method co-founder and chief brand architect Eric Ryan to share perspectives on brands, marketing and design.

In fact, challenger brands and consumer goods giants have been showing off their creative and strategic prowess at PACKAGING THAT SELLS since 2002. The conference has become a go-to source of insights, inspiration and connection-making opportunities for brand marketers, retail brand marketers and their package design and development teams.

This year, we have talks from Starbucks, Method and Target, a look at the new world of biosensory research, insights from sustainability projects at MIT, and more. Here’s a preview:

ON THE UP & UP: BEHIND THE SCENES WITH TARGET
Phyllis Aragaki, Target’s creative studio director, and Tim Murray, the retailer’s creative director, talk with Wolff Olins about the rebranding of Target’s private label line

INNOVATION “VIA” CONSUMER INSIGHT: THE STARBUCKS VIA STORY
Aimee Johnson, Starbucks’ vice president of strategic coffee initiatives presents with Hornall Anderson on the story of Starbucks’ Via brand launch

KLEENEX BREAKS THE MADDENING CYCLE OF MEDIOCRE DESIGN
Christine Mau, Kimberly-Clark’s brand design director, shares the Kleenex brand design story

THE FUTURE OF LUXURY BRANDS
Katrina Markoff, founder of Vosges Haut-Chocolat, offers a vision of the future from the eyes of an ultra-competitive luxury chocolate challenger brand

THE DEVIL’S IN THE DETAILS
Dan Shrimpton, co-founder and brand director of the UK’s PEPPERSMITH gum brand, talks about communicating a brand story on a pack the size of a match box

By bringing together some of the most creative minds in brand marketing and package design, we hope to inspire conversation, good ideas and, most of all, an opportunity for you to come away thoroughly refreshed. More details, including a full agenda, at www.packagingthatsells.com. See you in September. BP