Equal sequel
Sometimes, things just happen by accident. That's how Searle Canada found out it was time to change the packaging of its Equal low calorie sweetener. During exploratory research on a line extension concept, consumers were asked for their impressions of Equal, says Greg Ball, marketing manager, consumer products, Searle Canada.
"There was a feeling that the packaging didn't match the product' s premium price point and that it looked dated and a little artificial," Ball says.
Prior to the redesign, Equal and its main competitors, Sugar Twin Cyclamate and Sweet & Low, didn't engage in any strong positioning, Ball says. Though Equal was priced higher, all three were seen as products for dieters. But because of the increased awareness of health and nutrition, sugar substitutes are no longer used solely by dieters and people watching their health as part of a doctor's instructions.
Bob Russell, currently president of Toronto-based Russell Design, Inc., was creative director on the Equal redesign project while at Boulevard Communications, Toronto. He says that the packaging change offered Searle a chance to reposition Equal as a product for health-oriented people and capitalize on the public's increasing health consciousness.
"It allowed us to stretch the Equal equity and give the product a more contemporary. healthful image and make a radical departure from the competitive products on the shelf that had their feet back in the 1960s and 70s."
Deep blue
The new package replaces the sections of white and blue on the previous design with a deep, uniform blue. The Equal name has been reset in a large white letters in clean-looking sans serif type. In addition, the product usage examples on the old package have been replaced by a single shot of a strawberry in a spoon over a cup of coffee.
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"It's a fairly contemporary way of suggesting that the sweetener can be used on fruit or in coffee. We've had some interesting responses with the strawberry in the spoon; there is almost this natural feel that is quite positive. It is a very, very contemporary adaptation of the old packaging.
"The (old) package didn't block very well on the shelf, and we were looking for ways of capturing shelf real estate. By going to a deep blue that's very pure and very fresh we've given the whole package a larger scale and more impact," Russell says.
Brand equity
Though the new package is a departure from its predecessor, Russell says that the designers kept the old package in mind, because as with most redesign projects, altering the look of Equal's packaging was an exercise in testing the flexibility of existing brand equity. Changes have to be made, but changing too much can alienate long-time consumers
"All of the (prototypes) that went into research worked off the existing package and we were very, very structured in making sure that we moved the packaging very minimally to a more radical position. In our research, we find that consumers get upset if you change color, typography, and the way the product is depicted on the package. They're fairly protectionist against changing the elements they have come to trust and know because the product loses its meaningfulness for them.
"We felt that the Equal wordmark had lost its edge from a graphic point of view, so we wanted to test the elasticity of that. But our mandate was to help Searle through research to find a meaningful position for their product, (so) we knew we had to deal with the existing Equal mark and the product usage that was depicted on the package. We really concerned ourselves with the notion that there was some equity in the marketplace other than the Equal name, and that it had been established through the existing color and typography."
The tradition of showing a packet of Equal on the box was also eliminated.
"Equal has long been in the marketplace, so the need to show a packet has had its day. Everybody understands that sweeteners come in packets. So we felt that we didn't need to show what was inside. A typographic suggestion of the 100 packets was all that was necessary."
Personal interviews
Once prototypes were created, they were tested in personal interviews from mall intercepts with females 18-49 of above average income and education. The respondents compared the prototypes to the existing Equal packaging and to that of competitors' products.
(The prototypes were developed using computers so that the examples would look as close as possible to finished designs, Russell says. "There has always been a problem with researching designs and not using fairly finished samples. A consumer really has a hard time interpreting a sketch or a rendering, and when you stack them up against competitors' products, they obviously do not look as finished.")
Ball says that both old and new packages were tested for attributes such as "quality" and "natural" and also for purchase intent.
"We found that when they were exposed to the old packaging versus the new packaging, their purchase intent for the old packaging decreased. We knew we had a good product but the existing package was not helping us and may have been hurting us."
The research also confirmed that it wasn't necessary for the package to show several ways to use Equal. "We tested to see whether by showing more usage occasions on the new package we were implying other uses that the consumer wouldn't think of, but we found that we weren't introducing anything relevant to them by showing several usages, and in fact we were perhaps complicating the packaging," Ball says.
Overall, he says, the redesign has been a success. "Our sales are up and we've gotten many positive letters, so we feel that that's a good indicator that the new package has worked well."
Important role
Russell says that research should play an important role in the design process because the packaging has to communicate with the consumer.
"The bottom line is we're trying to create something that's meaningful for the consumer. We're employed as designers to make sure that what the consumer sees on the shelf communicates what the product is about-the attributes, the pricing, the lifestyle. To try to design without consumers' input is just not possible."
He also feels that in order to meet the client's needs and ensure the success of the project, the design and research camps must try to work together to understand their respective roles.
"There tends to be an adversarial relationship between the researcher and the designer. The designer says, 'Oh the researcher screwed up my design,' and the researcher says, 'The designer doesn't understand what research does.'
"We like to be part of a working team with the client and the researcher to make sure that we're getting the kinds of words and details from the research that are important to us. Because eventually, the designer has to put that information into a package, and if the information doesn't make sense to the designer, he gets frustrated.
"Working hand in hand with the research company, one that has sensitivity to what the designer is trying to do as well as what the marketer wants out of it, becomes a strong tool for marketers. The big opportunity of research and design relations is that there's becoming more and more importance placed on how a package does in research, not only quantitatively but qualitatively, because clients learn a lot from qualitative-it's all the words they don't hear quantitatively. I think that as the science matures and the research and design relationship gets refined, the better it will be for marketers."