We recently participated in the Project 2020, “Package of the Future” competition, a brand and package design competition held at this year’s Pack Expo in Chicago. The competition challenged branding firms to develop a brand proposition for a product in 2020. The 10 finalists were selected to display their concept prototypes at Pack Expo. We just learned that our concept is the Grand Prize Winner!

Here at Bailey we jumped at the chance to use our extensive branding and design experience to play entrepreneur, product developer, strategist, brand owner, designer, venture capitalist and, most importantly, the consumer all in one frenetically paced journey!

The first leg of our journey was to brainstorm product improvement opportunities based on our personal, everyday experiences. The goal was to identify an opportunity to improve a product from manufacturing through the consumer experience based on anticipated consumer needs of the future.

The product that we identified as having room for improvement was liquid hand soap. Current liquid soap offerings are available in single-use pumps or large refill containers. While they are typically made with recyclable materials, the refill containers tend to be big, bulky and messy to refill the small pump bottle.

Our team developed a brand proposition around concentrated soap gel capsules that dissolve in water. Currently, most liquid soaps on the market contain up to 85 parts water. With our new concept, SoapStix™, a consumer simply drops a concentrated, solid gel capsule into the soap dispenser and adds water. Consumers do not have to purchase large refill containers and can conveniently use any style or design of soap dispenser they choose.

The SoapStix™ package was designed to accentuate the shape of the capsules with a die-cut clamshell made of recycled fibers printed with soy ink. The brand name strategy includes an umbrella name, FLUX^TM [referring to a state of change], and the sub brand name, SoapStix^TM.

This concept could easily be adapted to a variety of other products such as shampoos and conditioners and essentially anything that can be sold as a concentrate.  Further innovation can be made to improve the dispensers and optimize them for this type of product.

SoapStix^TM Benefits

• Eco-Friendly: made from recycled paper; printed with soy inks; recyclable & biodegradable.

• Small Carbon Footprint: source material is post-consumer content; transportation needs are a small fraction of what is needed to ship traditional bottled hand soap.

• Retail Friendly: less shelf space and easier to inventory more product; attractive package for eye-catching displays.

• Convenience & Choice: no mess when refilling liquid soap dispenser; more choices in scents/soap types; can be used with any pump dispenser.

We worked closely with ROBRADY Design (www.robrady.com) to develop and produce our final SoapStix™ prototypes. ROBRADY and Bailey Brand Consulting have worked on a variety of initiatives together for mutual clients.