Detergent, but Swedish?
Our final project in Marketing 201 was to rebrand and re-market a dollar bottle of detergent. Bright orange bottle, looked and smelled a lot like blue-colored bubble solution, and it was called “LA’s Awesome Detergent.” What ensued was a little ridiculous.
During class, we had several field research days where we collected information about consumers. Some key points:
- customers would pay more for a detergent that they felt worked better
- our main competitor is Tide
- liquid detergent was more popular than pods
- but Tide pods were the most popular method
- people also tended to use the same brand they use at home
After some late night ideas, we struck the perfect balance. Let’s market our detergent like a pseudo-luxury vodka. We joked about calling it SKYY or Absolut, but decided on färsk, Swedish for fresh.
Not just a detergent, but somehow a trending hashtag (we hoped).
We thought about it - there’s not really a high-end detergent on the market. Our customer didn’t care about being eco-friendly, especially since they thought that ‘green’ products might not work as well. They trusted science and they wanted as many chemicals as possible to make their clothes look great.
In our pitch, we stated that
"We believe that there is a market need for high end detergents. Current branding is very focused on flowers, cuddly things, and aimed at moms. The leading competitor is Tide, which has very brand-loyal customers. There is no existing high-end eco-friendly detergent, or even a high-end detergent of any kind. This is an untapped market with a lot of potential. People want something they can trust, and it needs to stand out on the shelf.
Our new product embodies the effortlessly sustainable approach. Made of a recyclable plastic, the triangular-shaped container with embedded handle is designed to tessellate both on the shelf and while shipping in order to reduce shipping costs. The bottle shape is unique, important in differentiating färsk from any other detergent on the shelf.
Every purchase goes to grants for research on sustainable packaging through the färsk filanthropi. By doing so, the brand is able to personally connect to grad students and burgeoning scientists while also contributing to saving the planet.
The clear and simple packaging shows off the colorless detergent. The portable version for jetset busy people is compact and follows the same style guide. Priced slightly higher than Tide, färsk aims to reach the customers that are willing to spend a little more on a luxury.
This concentrated marketing approach targets cosmopolitans of any age. They just need to appreciate sleek efficiency."
The triangular bottle would tesselate on the shelf, reducing shipping costs while presenting a unique image.
The unique bottle shape and philanthropy approach, combined with aggressive social media advertising would sell our attempt at minimal branding. We weren’t selling detergent, we were selling a lifestyle. A sleek, cosmopolitan, and efficient lifestyle.
We got caught up in all these shenanigans, but our presentation stood out from the rest. #färsk
It's better.
EDIT: apparently my team was right on the money! Tide just announced Tide purclean, the 1st bio-based detergent.
färsk on the shelves?
The product has a “subtle, clean scent… and the bottle is also 100% recyclable.” Sound familiar? Additionally, the press release states that “people have yet to embrace laundry detergents with biobased ingredients because they feel there is a trade-off when it comes to cleaning performance, so we designed our biobased formula to provide more of the environmental benefits people increasingly seek, without compromising the trusted cleaning power of Tide.” Read about purclean and compare for yourself! It’s really exciting to have our product be be similar.