Brand Matters: Smart Design
Sugar Cosmetics' compact. Photo courtesy of compact supplier HCT Packaging Inc.By Robert C. Sprung - TippingSprung LLC
Brand building today means seeking new ways to set your product apart and ultimately get the attention of your customer in an increasingly crowded field.
New and improved products have always been a key differentiator. Using branded packaging to showcase product innovation is a relatively new phenomenon for this industry. Cosmetics marketers are learning a few tricks from other product categories, combining their sense of aesthetics with a new approach toward using functional components.
A recent example is Aquafresh's Extreme Clean toothpaste. It reflects the trend toward using silver-colored packaging to connote a clean, modern, and premium product. This probably stems from the use of stainless steel in high-end appliances, the popularity of white gold and platinum for jewelry, and the advent of titanium as a high-tech material.
Bill Schroeder The packaging for the Extreme Clean toothpaste leverages these trends with its aluminum-style tube. In addition, a new, easy-grip cap not only looks more modern and technologically advanced, it also allows the tube to stand up, an innovation in the soft-tube category. The clear plastic box surrounding the tube shows off the product and helps reinforce the attributes of newness, innovation, and cleanliness.
Some cosmetics brands are breaking out from the pack. Rocket City, which targets an ultrahip population, uses silver, clean, modern, and trendy packaging. Equally important for the brand is small, multifunctional packaging. For instance, its dual-ended Fueled line of eye makeup is billed as the "perfect travel companion." One end of the casing houses liquid eyeliner and the other a coordinating mascara. This functional enhancement has become a part of the brand, spawning many copycats.
Sugar Cosmetics is also reflecting its brand's fun and flirty personality in its packaging. In keeping with that positioning, Sugar Girl's Shaggy Puff not only looks cheeky and groovy, it is infused with pink shimmer powder that smells and tastes (I am told) like sugar. The packaging is the perfect brand extension—a clear plastic pouch with a purselike handle.
Sugar Girl also markets an on-the-go pack of six sparkling lip glosses. The white rounded plastic package is meant to look like an innovative storage box.
For its iOd skincare line, Dior has chosen packaging that looks and feels modern and clinical, a nod to the emerging cosmeceutical industry. Along with the brand's name and visual identity, its frosty ice-blue plastic differentiates the line. These elements also allow Dior to stretch its reach beyond serving its established, older, higher-end-product-seeking demographic.
Clever packaging is also part of iOd's story. Its interesting shape and translucent plastic attract attention. The pump integrates into the top in a novel manner.
Stila Cosmetics seeks to "dream up beauty products that are revolutionary in concept, formula, and packaging design. Clean, imaginative, and environmentally correct, the line defines simplicity and chic."
Packaging for Stila's Eye Shadow Duos delivers on this positioning. It consists of two pan shadows encased in a floral-patterned compact, which looks handmade. Simple yet chic, it looks one of a kind.
Bill Schroeder is the director of design services at TippingSprung. TippingSprung offers brand strategy, naming, design, research, translation, and cross-cultural services. Visit the company's Web site at www.tippingsprung.com
