Designer Interview: Kathleen Williams, Anticipation
Kathleen WilliamsWilliams shares the ups and downs of being a start-up brand.
By Jennifer Kwok, Managing EditorKathleen Williams talks like someone who has been through and seen it all. As the founder of the upscale intimacy personal care companies Just Between Us (JBU) and Marital Wellness International describes her travails in developing the packaging for her new intimacy line, Anticipation, the stories are enough to make any start-up entrepreneur’s hair stand on end. Luckily, the result—tasteful packages aimed to make customers happy, and not embarrassed, to buy intimacy products—makes all the strife worthwhile.
Anticipation’s primary packages feature labels inspired by iPod colors.
The primary packages for Anticipation are bottles for massage oil, gel, and cream. There is also a dispensing brush for body powder. Williams’s brother, a Los Angeles interior designer, fashioned the bright green, orange, pink, and yellow labels, whose colors were inspired by the look of Apple’s mini iPod. The graphic design was done by Focus Design (Provo, UT). “We had a marketing professional evaluate the packages, and she said we were crazy because if you look in Sephora, everything in cosmetics is now subtle and subdued,” says Williams. “But we wanted ours to be bright.”
There were no big issues involved with the primary packaging. The bottles are standard clear plastic bottles with black pumps and a clear overcap. They were supplied by Sorenco Laboratories (Salt Lake City), which provided turnkey R&D, formulation, package sourcing, and filling serv-ices. “Having the company that formulates and fills your products also source the packaging is great because the company knows best what packages will work on its lines,” Williams says. “Also, they were able to get a better price for the packaging because they buy in high volume for several other clients as well.” The dispensing brush was provided by Alcan (Los Angeles) and the powder was supplied by Classic Cosmetics (Chatsworth, CA). The labels are made by LithoFlexo Graphics (Salt Lake City).
Williams added several custom details that give Anticipation a special touch. Instead of cartons, the products are packaged as a gift set in a polka-dot purse-style carton with grosgrain-ribbon handles. Even the sample packages, supplied by Xela Pack (Saline, MI), are housed in a small version of the purse. Upscale metal keychains, supplied by Marketing Innovations in Los Angeles, adorn the ribbon handles and “were produced without a hitch,” says Williams. Finally, a unique catalog that folds into 12 panels, with front and back covers, was designed by Focus Design and supplied by LithoFlexo Graphics. “The covers have to be glued on by hand,” says Williams. “I saw a similar catalog that Saks Fifth Avenue had done for an event.”
The line’s bag-style carton, complete with keychain.
Williams hit one snag when it came to the cartons. When she received them, she found that the Velcro closure wouldn’t stay on the carton. Her solution was to affix the Velcro using rivets. However, the supplier, Action Bag (Chicago), finally decided to solve the problem and to reproduce all of the cartons. “I would have left Action Bag if it were not for Bobbi Jo Celli, Action Bag’s business development manager. She has been a lifesaver,” says Williams. “They are redoing all 10,000 bags and are crediting me for the 5000 I worked on myself. I think people need to work out the issues with the company they started working with because what I’ve found is that if you switch to another company, you might get those issues worked out but then you’ll likely encounter new problems.”
Williams says that she thought that she had avoided problems by choosing a carton that wasn’t a custom shape. “We had created a custom carton for JBU and had nothing but trouble with it,” she says. “So when we did the Anticipation line, we chose something that was a stock item that had been used by many other companies.”
She continues, “I had thought that based on all of the issues I had encountered with the packaging for JBU, we weren’t going to have any issues with the packaging for Anticipation. What I’ve found is that there is no such thing as not having issues when it comes to packaging. I almost lost my biggest account due to these bags popping open on retail shelves. You’ve really got to be prepared to do a quick fix for anything that might come up.”
The challenges with Anticipation reminded Williams of the struggles with her first line, JBU. When it launched, the line was successful, selling at places such as the Bellagio Hotel shops in Las Vegas and in high-end spas in Utah and California. However, Williams soon found out that the name Just Between Us was a trademark infringement—something that, as someone starting out, she hadn’t thought to check. “I think that one of the biggest reasons why small companies curl up and die is because they make mistakes that they have a hard time coming back from,” she says.
Luckily, Williams’s story looks like it will have a happy ending. Her goal continues to drive her. “I get so much slander from people saying that I’m interrupting the sacredness of what goes on in the bedroom. But I think that good women deserve to have intimacy products that they don’t have to be embarrassed to buy or have to go to an adult novelty store to buy. I have found resolve, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make it okay for intimacy products to be in the mainstream market.” She says that Anticipation’s attractive packaging has helped get the line in upscale doors.
Williams offers this advice to start-up marketers like herself: “Go to trade shows. We put a lot of money that we didn’t have into attending the HBA Global Expo show, and we ended up finding so many of our suppliers there—Xela Pack, Marketing Innovations, and Action Bag. Also, get your hands on as many trade magazines as you can. I wish that I could have attended a class with a start-up person like myself to hear every negative experience he or she went through.” Williams will share her experiences, good and bad, at a conference called New Trends in Personal Care on September 19 at the upcoming HBA show.