Client
Calor SA

Design Consultancy
Seymourpowell
Dick Powell
020 7381 6433
dick.powell@seymourpowell.com
www.seymourpowell.com

The Brief
Seymourpowell has worked with French company Calor since 1998 and had designed a new mid-range iron, Avantis, which launched under the Tefal brand in 2000.

By 2003 sales of Avantis had begun to decline and a replacement model was needed. In this time the domestic iron market had become extremely competitive and included many own brand and branded Far Eastern products manufactured at a much lower cost. The new product, which would be manufactured in Europe, needed to be innovative to compete with lower cost products and ensure that Tefal brands remained on the shelves of powerful retailers.

The Design
Research by Seymourpowell identified two key areas of opportunity and proposed two innovative solutions.

The first concerned how the steam iron is filled with water. Traditional irons have a small aperture at the front of the product: filling it with water is a fiddly process (many manufacturers provide a small jug for this purpose) which takes 45-60 seconds. The Aquaspeed fills through a springloaded trapdoor at the back, with a large aperture meaning the iron can be filled in 5 seconds. The second problem was stability: most iron breakages occur when the iron topples off the ironing board. The Aquaspeed has a large footprint with a hollowed out heel to reduce weight and bulk: this also enables the product to meet new and more stringent EU norms for drop tests.

The distinctive design allowed the iron to communicate its advantages on shelf, without the need for additional point of sale material.

The Results
In the UK in the year following launch, share by value in the over 60 Euro segment, where the iron sells, went up by 14 points from 29 per cent to 43 per cent. The UK is the biggest market in Europe and the Aquaspeed has reached number one in the sales hitlist without any supporting TV or consumer advertising. In Germany and France, where the product sells in the 45-60 Euro segment, sales have gone up by 9.9 points and 13.3 points respectively in the year from launch. In France, Aquaspeed is number one in the sales hitlist and in Germany it is number four – where its predecessor Avantis was ranked only number 33.

All this is despite the iron market in these three key territories declining by 7 per cent in 2004.

Judge’s Comments
‘The quantifiable business return in a sector that has seen a downward trend is very impressive,’ said Darren Briggs, Head of Internal Communications, Vodafone. The insight gained, he added ‘from listening to their customers, and truly understanding their needs, has created a remarkable design solution that has reinvigorated the category’.