PACKAGING INNOVATIONS LONDON2011

Kevin Vyse - Chair

Kevin is a brand, packaging and retail troubleshooter and his career has spanned 30 years in FMCG with time being spent on all facets of the branding, packaging and retail mix.

He trained as a packaging designer and also marketer and is in a unique position to speak on matters concerning brands, packaging and retail. Companies listed in his portfolio include SJ Johnson, Reckitt Benckiser, GSK, Tesco, Diageo, B&Q, Planet Design, Akzo Nobel, M S George and Butcombe Brewery.

Helen Touchais, Innovations Director, Premier Foods

Helen is a Brand Marketeer with 20 years experience.  She started her career at Nestle Rowntree, followed by a stint on healthcare brands at Roche and then spent 6 years in a number of Marketing Manager roles at Sainsbury’s including National Advertising, the home shopping team as well as managing sub-brands (such as Be Good To Yourself) and Innovation. 

Helen is currently at Premier Foods where she is Innovation Controller for Dessert Brands (Ambrosia & Hartley’s). In the last 12 months she has played a key role in securing significant investment in the Ambrosia Creamery to unlock innovative new packaging formats for the brand, as well as championing Innovation throughout the company as an Innovation Practitioners – an internal Innovation agency running projects to briefs across any of the companies key brands.

Jonathan Couper, Brand & Packaging Manager, B&Q:

Jonathan is a passionate believer in the primacy of design and how it can build and add value to brands. Brands make a real positive difference to people’s lives and trying to make things better and easier for consumers still gets him excited and motivated every day.

Jonathan has spent his whole working life in the design and packaging industry within packaging manufacturers and users, design agencies and retailers. This experience has given him an in-depth knowledge of all aspects of packaging and design and a unique perspective on the industry.

His experience covers all aspects of the supply chain from initial graphic and structural design, innovation through to packaging and product. He has an in-depth knowledge of most areas of design, packaging and retail, from transit and distribution to in-store.

He started his career as a laboratory technician at Trebor Sharps, now part of Cadbury’s followed by nearly six years at Reed Corrugated Cases, now Saica where he provided quality and technical support for the sales teams and customers. Jonathan then moved into retail where he spent nearly ten years at Bhs and a couple at the Burton group as a packaging buyer, design manager and technologist. In 1993 he moved to the design agency Wickens Tutt Southgate, now Brandhouse as Production Director, he stayed at the agency for eleven years before moving to become Packaging Manager for John Lewis until 2007 when he joined B&Q as Packaging Manager. 

As well as his work within B&Q and the Kingfisher group Jonathan also sits on the board of OPRL at the BRC and is the retailer representative on the Advisory Committee on Packaging at defra.

Joe Schurtz, Executive Vice President, PRS International

Joe Schurtz is Executive Vice President of Perception Research Services, International.  Mr. Schurtz holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and Finance from La Salle University in Philadelphia and has completed additional marketing and research courses at the City University of New York Graduate Center.  He joined Perception Research in the spring of 1977 and has been conducting consumer research on pack design and in-store marketing communications for the past 35 years.

Mr. Schurtz moved to the UK in the fourth quarter of 2009 to open and lead the PRS London office. He has been a guest lecturer to marketing and graphic design students at a number of US Universities and frequently participated in package design symposiums and conferences. He is the former editor of NewsWrap (a quarterly newsletter from the Package Design Council, International). He has served as a judge for the PDC Gold Awards and has provided consultative counsel to such Global marketers as Johnson and Johnson, Unilever, AB/In-Bev, GlaxoSmithKline, 3M, Nestle, SCJohnson, Pepsi, Kraft/Cadbury and Jack Daniels.

Mr. Schurtz’ packaging expertise has been crafted through a combination of qualitative consumer discussions and quantitative survey research. His connection to consumer attitudes and behavior are the result of:

·         Personally conducting more than 4000 package specific focus groups

·         Assessing the shelf breakthrough of packaging in more than 50 categories

·         Observing the buying behavior of thousands of shoppers at the point of sale

·         Uncovering brand and package equity

Guy Douglass, Managing Director, BOS:

Guy Douglass is managing director and joint owner of award-winning brand and packaging design consultancy, BOS:

He gained his business degree at Sheffield University and went straight into FMCG marketing at the Colgate Palmolive company, working across several leading household brands. He then left to join Kraft - the largest packaged goods company in the world - as the brand manager for Café Hag, Kenco and Masterbend.

 A short change in career direction as marketing director for an independent school then followed, before Guy switched to where he should always have been: on the agency side. He joined BOS: (then named flb) as client director in 1997, eventually becoming managing director and taking joint ownership of the agency with Colin Mechan in 2008. 

In a strategic reflection of the Internationalisation of the company’s client base, Guy and Colin took the decision to re-brand flb to become BOS: in 2011. The new name has captured the dynamic and forward-looking essence of the agency’s own brand and is a purer representation of its core business, designing its clients’ “Brand on Shelf”.  

Guy and his team at BOS: have a string of design awards to their name and an enviable client base which includes household name brands such as ASDA, Kenwood and Danone.

With 25 solid years working at the sharp end of competitive brand marketing and design Guy’s strengths lie in steering the strategic course for BOS: and he has brought around him an excellent team of high calibre professionals who are helping to take the company to even greater heights.  Guy is a pragmatic realist, believing simply that great design, branding and marketing success are based upon common sense combined with huge experience.

When he is out of the office Guy is as busy as he is at BOS:. He has a personal passion for competing at triathlon and passes on his knowledge through coaching members of the Cheltenham Triathlon Club. He has also recently revisited his musical roots, playing the trombone again after a long break. He likes people and supermarkets, seriously dislikes politicians and is a stickler for the correct use of grammar. He is married with two daughters and a cockatoo.