Josh Brooks / PackagingNews
Vertical tubes boost Aquafresh standout
Competition is fierce in the oral care category with around 550 products trying to grab the attention of the consumer. Josh Brooks finds that the Aquafresh Ultimate approach is to drop the cartons and go vertical.
The brief To highlight the scientific credentials of the new Aquafresh Ultimate toothpaste, while maximising shelf stand-out
Client GlaxoSmithkline
Brand Aquafresh Ultimate
Design In-house and Webb deVlam
Packaging suppliers Albéa (tube), DS
Smith Packaging (shelf-ready packaging), Menshen (cap), API
Laminates (fresnel lens)
UK launch date June 2011
How does a shopper find their way around 550 products in a single category?
That was the conundrum facing GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) when it set about developing the packaging for its latest toothpaste launch, Aquafresh Ultimate.
Top of the agenda was achieving standout in a category dominated by horizontally-stacked cartons. The answer? Drop the carton and go vertical.
It’s a bold move for a product that makes a bold claim. Aquafresh Ultimate’s key product claim is that it will not only clean the 30% of the tooth that is visible above the gum, but also help to safeguard the 70% below the gumline by keeping the gum-tooth seal tight.
Simon Ritchie, packaging design and ideation director for GSK’s consumer healthcare division, says: “Oral care is a difficult aisle to shop and we wanted to help the consumer navigate it. Moreover, the vertical format allows us to make the key benefits of the variant the hero.”
It does this in two ways. First is the vertical tubes’ much-sought-after disruption to the look of the shelf display itself, which is designed to draw the customer’s eye to the product. Second is the graphics, which reflect the scientific claims made by the product, which launched in the UK in June after roll-outs in continental Europe earlier in the year.
Ritchie explains that the Aquafresh Ultimate packaging has been in development for around three years and was founded on a body of research gathered by GSK’s in-house pack and Consumer Healthcare category team. Design agency Webb deVlam was then called in to work collaboratively on the look and feel of the packs, whose target is mothers looking to take special care of their family’s health.
The resulting design carries a ‘halo’ at the top of the tube that features the ‘Whole Tooth Protection’ claim and shows both the visible and below-the-gum parts of the tooth.
The familiar Aquafresh ‘nurdle’ (the wavy dab of toothpaste) is included with the new ‘Ultimate’ variant name. Semiotic codes, such as the specially-designed modernist font for the ‘Ultimate’ name On the shelf-ready packs, developed by GSK’s design and technical packaging team and produced by DS Smith, the ‘halo’ is highlighted with the inclusion of API Laminates’ fresnel lens that gives the impression of a 3D bubble. Both GSK, on its Sensodyne brand, and Webb deVlam, on a pack for Bombay Sapphire, had previously used the technology.
Ritchie says that eye-tracking was key to developing the relationship between the SRP and the pack. “We discovered that the claim was highly motivating for consumers, so when they are on approach to the shelf we made sure that the hierarchy was successful in capturing their attention.”
Structure-wise, the tube, made by Albéa, and the ‘stay-clean’ flip-top cap, made by Menshen, are able to stand up in the bathroom as well as on the shelf.
But, Ritchie says, the real challenge for the retail-ready packs was at the packing stage. “Cartonless was not necessarily a new concept, as it’s quite popular in continental Europe. But we had to optimise the format to achieve the front-facing tubes as part of the holistic vision. We had to invest in some additional equipment to enable the tubes to be accurately placed into the PET tray.”
While sales figures have exceeded expectations since the launch, Ritchie explains that the complexity of the project has brought about its biggest lesson.
“The process of delivering Aquafresh Ultimate has brought about a number of new ways in which we interact as a cross functional team. Seeing the product on shelf is a great achievement for the whole team and a sign that both perseverance and persistence ultimately pay dividends.
These packs are a real collaborative effort both internally and externally.”
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