Tradition has its place, but being in the same bottle for years, with sales flat, Elmer's came to our door in search of ways they could take a well-known, global brand name and improve their position in the adhesive market.
But, before designing the bottle we needed to become experts in the category. After several trips to local retailers it was apparent as to why sales were not increasing. Competitors were not only on the shelf next to Elmer's, but on the shelf in the same stock bottle, with the same color product and even the same color labels. The key differentiation was unfortunately price - these other brands were selling for less.
Elmer's needed a face lift and a new brand identity to their packaging. TB Design decided shape and color were the way to help punch the brand on the shelf. First, the shape - we created an offset neck for directional use and provided the top deck of the bottle with a slanted face. The slanted face, when collectively aligned with other Elmer's bottles, created what is viewed as the brands own POP display using the bottle shape as its foundation. Retailers and Elmer’s now had the shelf impact they were after for the brand.
To address the color-sameness issue - the competitors were all in natural PE – TricorBraun Design decided to give the new design an added punch by using the Elmer's blue as the base color for a new shrink sleeve label.