Lifestyle brands transcend economic downturns by forging meaningful relationships with core consumers. Understand their ‘hot’ buttons to elevate your product above the clutter.

Lifestyle brands sell because they work on two levels. First, they give consumers functional value, whether it’s saving time or increasing product-usage occasions. Second, they pamper consumers with moments of indulgence or a feeling of empowerment and accomplishment.

Lifestyle brands know what buttons to push with their consumers’ emotions and create deep, lasting bonds. These meaningful relationships elevate them to true brand status and provide an edge in today’s soft economy, when commodity products compete for lowest price. As the following two recent examples of lifestyle brands demonstrate, the packaging works holistically with the product to produce “theater” in the store and then become a trusted friend at the point of use. Along the way, lifestyle brands rank higher than lowest price on the consumer’s mental checklist at the point of sale.

• Taylor Made Golf Co. has rejuvenated its high-performance line of Maxfli golf balls by giving the brand a “maverick” strategic position. The line’s “Everyman” personality sets it apart from the company’s other golf ball lines.

• WD-40 Co. answered consumers’ expressed distinct challenges of cleaning bathrooms with its new X-14 cleaner. Package design and graphics reinforce the perception of a product that protects against germs.

Golf balls with attitude

When marketing balls to golfers, TaylorMade Golf Co., Carlsbad, CA, is among many golf-equipment companies that have the challenge of appealing to enthusiasts of the sport. Numerous ball brands focus exclusively on ball performance, but TaylorMade recently injected branding personality for its Maxfli line of balls—which had been stuck in a divot with flat sales. Packaging is the central point of marketing communications touting Maxfli as an “Everyman” brand, with a playful bit of attitude that creates a perceived lifestyle fit with many ordinary golfers.

Cartons holding a dozen Maxfli balls and three-ball carton sleeves leverage the notoriety of renegade professional golfer John Daly, considered the PGA tour’s “Everyman” golfer, and position Maxfli as a maverick brand of value-oriented and distance-oriented balls, explains Matthew Bachmann, Marketing Manager at design firm Miriello Grafico (www.miriellografico.com). TaylorMade markets its Maxfli balls under the Fire, Ice, Noodle, and Powermax varieties.

“These balls are for the ‘Everyman’ golfer, with a twist,” Bachmann says. “They add attitude, but not to the point where it’s disrespectful to the game.”

A photo of the broad-shouldered Daly at the apex of his powerful swing appears on cartons of Powermax and Powermax Distance balls. These “grip it and rip it” balls, at $14.95 per dozen, appeal to budget-conscious consumers.

The Maxfli Noodle and Maxfli Fire golf balls don’t include Daly’s photo on the carton cover. They opt instead for graphics that symbolize Daly’s bold and aggressive approach to the game as a premium-positioning tactic that brings $25 to $40 per carton of a dozen balls. The ball technology behind each of these three sub-brands breaks par with more serious golfers, and the graphic intensity of the cartons adds a dash of irreverence and fun. Noodle’s colorful starburst cover graphics convey a “distance-game” ball, while Noodle Ice’s carton graphics create the perception of a ball that gets “Icy Hot Distance.” The Fire line of balls, contained inside a carton with an image of a roaring fire, provides “Blazing Ball Speed,” according to the carton cover tagline. The fire-pattern brand name enhances the speed message.

Cartons for each ball variety are SBS paperboard. Those for the Noodle and Fire golf ball varieties include holographic patterns accentuated by layered inks. In addition, the Noodle Ice achieves its stunning shelf presence with a metallized polyester film laminated to the carton. Each of the carton lids is printed in four colors with one or two spot colors. Shorewood Packaging (www.shorewoodpackaging.com) provides and prints the cartons.

The essence of a “maverick” brand continues inside the carton. Each of the three-ball sleeves repeats the design of the secondary carton for all of the sub-brands.

By injecting stimulating visuals and a bit of playfulness, Maxfli has created a brand position with “in-your-face” impact. Yet, “Everyman” golfers perceive that Taylor Made understands them as typical duffers.

Dimensions of clean

Another strategy for creating a successful lifestyle brand is focusing on a reinforced sense of well-being. One section of the store where this message can work well is household products, and a stellar recent example is WD-40’s X-14 bathroom-cleaning products.

Consumers told researchers for WD-40, San Diego, CA, that the bathroom has distinct cleaning challenges requiring special cleaning products for quick touch-ups and deep cleaning. WD-40 centers the branding architecture around its X-14 line as “the bathroom expert.” Foremost, bold packaging colors and graphics signal “clean.” The packaging gives the brand family visual cohesion and extends to collateral materials and the brand’s Web site, www.thebathroomexpert.com, creating a cleaning clearinghouse that offers tips on everything from removing tough mold and mildew to education on proper cleaning techniques to bathroom-safety ideas.

The packaging highlights the concept of quick cleaning—a simple spray and wipe—versus deep cleaning—down-on-your-knees scrubbing. These insights needed to create different products and signify these two cleaning styles through packaging were gained from qualitative research. WD-40 conducted in-home ethnographic research, “shopalongs” with consumers, and focus groups, says Heidi Noorany, Director of Marketing. Among the variables that were tested were package shapes to support the brand positioning.

“Sales for the X-14 line were fine in our old packaging, but we knew we had a lot of upside potential because these products are so good,” Noorany says. “The old positioning of the brand was based on efficacy and product strength. We felt we had an even better chance to communicate benefits with the new packaging.”

New, forward-leaning bottles across the X-14 line feature a customized, swirl-shaped neck with a matching trigger sprayer, from Continental AFA (www.continentalafa.com). The bottles are used for bathroom cleaner, shower cleaner, and mold and mildew remover. An X is embossed into the mold of the royal-blue-colored bottles. The plastic bottles are from Patrick Products (www.patrickproducts.com). The pressure-sensitive bottle labels, from WS Packaging Group (www.wspackaging.com), heighten the sense of cleanliness with a starburst above the brand name. Nozzles on cans of foaming bathroom cleaner, from CCL Container (www.cclcontainer.com), spray an 8”-diameter area.

Paperboard cartons for the toilet bowl cleaner, from JR Cole Industries (www.jrcole.com), resemble the bottle shapes to unify visual equity across the brand.

“There’s a lot of positive emotion in getting results using both products,” Noorany says. “X-14 now says to people, ‘This is a brand I can turn to for my whole cleaning needs. You understand how I clean.’” {SI!}

The author, Jim George, is the Editor-in-Chief of Shelf Impact!