For design strategists Beardwood&Co., a lack of brand identity for 30-year-old deodorant brand SURE, now owned by Idelle Labs, provided a blank canvas for a revitalization of the brand and its packaging. In mid-2011, Beardwood was hired by Idelle to “evolve the packaging to inspire desire at shelf without alienating existing customers,” explains Beardwood Managing Partner Ryan Lynch.
“We conducted research following our first round of design exploration. We took a number of concepts into qualitative research, but started each discussion with consumers about the equities of the brand and what they could remember about it unaided,” Lynch adds. “In most circumstances, there was little equity beyond the name and their association as having a great unscented variant.”
SURE was introduced in 1973 as a unisex product—a somewhat foreign concept to today’s personal care consumers. “Another big insight from our research was that while both men and women currently used the product, there is an expectation that deodorants are gender-specific,” says Lynch. “Therefore, something unisex will not be perceived as effective as a product that is gender-specific. SURE’s customers were women, and the brand needed to commit to this group to keep them and bring new users.”
