More, More, More…

More choice or more confusion?

As a brand designer, I think that the creative opportunities in the world of health and beauty are some of the best. On a recent trip to New York and on a subsequent ‘recce’ in London, I walked up and down the long (are they getting longer?) personal care aisles in pharmacies, department stores and supermarkets. I was met with a veritable visual feast of offerings. I find it very hard to keep up with the innovations in product and packaging—and that’s the problem and potential danger for future successful brands. If I, as the ‘expert’, am becoming confused what hope is there for the consumer?

Consumers Need ‘Some’ Choices

Marketing savvy they may be, but there comes a point when it’s just plain exhausting trying to decode and demystify the plethora of choice that is now available. The hair care sector seems to be dominating this product jungle with many hair care ranges boasting between 15 and 20 products; far more extensive, in fact, than the majority of skin care ranges. Go into any supermarket and try and buy a shampoo in under 30 seconds. With over 80 varieties, how can you?

Is it the manufacturer or the consumer that is responsible for speeding up this product cycle? It would seem that many health and beauty brand owners are still driving forward on the assumption that consumer desire is so great that any new manifestation of ‘hope in a jar or bottle’ will sell. This seems strangely out of step with a market sector that is as pioneering as it is proactive in developing new products. The reaction of today’s consumer is to cry out for editors or filters that can simplify overwhelming choice in all walks of our lives and I firmly believe that today’s consumer is not looking to brand owners for yet more choice, but rather to provide them with the ‘help’ to make a discerned choice; a choice that is individual and customized.

Customization: A Blessing or a Curse?

Increasingly individual in their tastes and choices, consumers are looking to brands as a means of self-expression. So how do brand-owners capitalize on what is, after all, a new area of opportunity and threat? Customization offers limited opportunities to engage the trend of individuality. However, brands with a strong truth at their heart can build desirable concepts and products that are designed to allow the consumer to project a good deal of themselves into the brand. This, in turn, places a greater potential responsibility for brand communication on pack design and its component elements. So what visual cues really make a difference and make sense of the plethora of product? Structure? Graphics? Texture? Materials? Copy?

Packaging Can Help

Bold and vibrant color has traditionally been a way of attracting the consumer to the hair care shelf. VO5 has recently revamped its U.S. offer, opting for a bright red colorway across the whole range. As a manufacturer with an insurmountable range of products, the on-shelf ‘wall of red’ is hard to ignore, but is the consumer any the wiser when it comes to choosing between the product benefits of ‘VO5 Red’ or ‘Garnier Fructis Green’? VO5 has adopted a ‘one-word’, key product descriptor such as ‘power’, ‘quick’, ‘whip’, etc.

Sunsilk, a global name synonymous with hair care, has also recently revamped its packaging and ad campaign. Sunsilk has adopted bright colors and more contemporary structures and graphics. The product names are again adjectives, which convey the product benefit: ‘Blow-dry aid’ and Anti-drop hairspray’ to name a few. This marketing tactic is very ‘of the now’ and is playing to our time-short lives when we need key information in as short and as palatable a method as possible—but is it enough? VO5 and Sunsilk could easily blend into one and become ‘much of a muchness’. The marketing approach is dictatorial and does not engage us or allow us to be part of the brand narrative.
In fairness, both Sunsilk and VO5 have aimed for simplicity—through color, language and with tone of voice—and they are correct in recognizing that the simpler things offer more enduring benefits. I do believe that the biggest shake-up to this category will come from the focus on ‘simplicity and disruption’. Simple and disruptive design will gain attention by cutting through the clutter or by changing the rules; for example, by creating a new type of impact without the need for big logos or by instilling respect through the tone of voice.

Simplicity Makes Sense

Although a niche product, no other offer is typifying ‘disruption’ more obviously than L’Occitane’s new L’Occitane Olive Hair Care Oil. Packaged in a glass, screw-top bottle, it is— from structure to labeling and typeface—a bottle of premium olive oil. Iconic and classically beautiful, with a focus on heritage and tradition, the product and packaging are seamlessly married, and one can’t help but also derive a certain humor from the ‘borrowed’ design and positioning.

Simplicity, rather than science, is starting to come through in all its forms and most notably through the focus on natural ingredients. Natural health and beauty manufacturer, Aquolina, is significantly extending its hair care range and introducing new ‘flavors’, such as Pineapple, Almond Milk and Peach and Apricot, into their core Shampoo range. Yes, they are extending their range and, one could rightly say, providing yet more choice. However, in every other respect, Aquolina ticks all the boxes. Aquolina is using food ingredients and crossing over product and packaging to reinforce the brand message—we know the ingredients, we readily understand the product benefit. Essential Aquolina products, such as shampoos and conditioners, are packaged in a plastic hand-held water/sports drink bottle structure making them clean and easy to use. The opaque material used allows the natural colour of the product to be the focus with stylish front-of-pack labeling giving the name and product benefit in a succinct and stylish fashion. Aquolina is also one of the first to make a cross-category move with the recent introduction of its Hair Perfume Spray.

What’s Branding All About?

Let’s remind ourselves why brands were created in the first place: as guarantees of singular trust and quality. The hair and personal care brands of the future should identify with people in a totally naked and pared down way and the successful ones will be those that pre-edit their offer from the outset and help consumers navigate the crowded mass of the ever more complex health and beauty fixture. Single-minded communication of the product benefit in an exquisitely designed way is going to be the order of the day.

If you don’t want us to follow Sarah-Jessica Parker’s lead and give up on the hair care sector altogether, choosing instead to care for our tresses with Mane & Tail horse shampoo, then you need to seriously review your future offer and reassess the way you research, design and market your products. Are you adding to, or cutting through the clutter? Fresh thinking is needed, which reminds me of the adage; “If you do what you’ve always done, then you’ll get what you’ve always gotten”