The Challenge
Challs International was a small player in the household cleaner market. Its Buster brand had a diffuse product portfolio, but was finding it difficult to communicate the features and benefits of each of its products. Its small bottles were struggling to stand out on shelves and its packaging seemed to lack authority or the credentials to give customers confidence.
The Brief
With a design and print budget of just £40,000 (Euro 59,000), Elmwood was tasked with repositioning the brand, redefining the main product, Sink Fresh and communicating its key product performance benefits. At the same time, the redesign had to engage retail buyers in order to get the product stocked on the shelves of the major supermarkets. Budget restrictions also meant that the brand’s structural packaging had to be retained.
The Design
Elmwood has worked with Challs to re-segment the range into two groups and two colours: Sink Fresh (for maintenance, in fresh colours of green and purple) and Drain Clear (for problem solving, in functional black). This enables the brand to be presented as a clear system of plughole care and maintenance.
The existing mark (a ‘busy bee’) lacked authority, so Elmwood have created an instantly recognisable and ownable mark, with modelled typography that transforms the U of Buster into a U-bend, emphasising function and expertise. A key decision was not to use the whizzes and sparkles so often used to characterise power-performance in this category, but instead to go for clean minimal purposeful design with different versions of the plughole graphic which changes to further differentiate between products.
The Results
The rebranded Buster range launched in July 2004: since then, Buster has experienced an increase in value sales of 84%. At the same time, the drain specialist sub-sector has seen an overall decline of 4%, with value sales of a leading competitor decreasing by 7.4%. Sales of the Buster range in Waitrose have risen by 86% and in Morrisons by 67%, while new accounts at Aldi and Lidl opened up routes to distribution in Europe.
Judges’ Comments
The judges commended Challs International’s ‘clear goal’ and ‘brave and well-thought-out strategy’ to recategorise the range. Karsten Henze, Executive Corporate Design, Deutsche Bahn, singled out Elmwood’s brand work as particularly effective and showing ‘very impressive growth in a declining market’. Mike Hussey, Managing Director, Land Securities, added that ‘the fact that they have not radically altered the package itself is impressive’.
The judging panel also commended the brand’s proactive approach to new markets in Eastern Europe and Australia.
