One strategy for creating a successful lifestyle brand focuses 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. The 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, WD-40's 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. 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. The pressure-sensitive bottle labels, from WS Packaging Group, heighten the sense of cleanliness with a starburst above the brand name. Nozzles on cans of foaming bathroom cleaner, from CCL Container, spray an 8"-diameter area.
Paperboard cartons for the toilet bowl cleaner, from JR Cole Industries, 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.'"
By Jim George, Editor-in-Chief
