Designed to Open New Doors

When Eufora International launched its new product line this year, Beautifying Elixirs, the company had a number of goals in mind, and the right packaging has contributed to achieving these goals.

"We had a number of reasons for launching Beautifying Elixirs," says Beth Bewley, co-founder, Eufora International. “The new collection is a sub-brand of Eufora's core product line, which consists of shampoos, conditioners and styling products -- but it stands on its own as well. We focused on creating products that would deliver new benefits – so Beautifying Elixirs’ products are all formulated to deliver specific results, for specific hair types."

Eufora's new Beautifying Elixers collection is color-coded and color-coordinated. The muted colors are formulated with metallic fleck, and are designed to compliment each other.

The Packaging

Beautifying Elixirs' packaging is designed to differentiate the line from Eufora's existing core product line. But it also fits in with the brand, and looks like it is a part of the Eufora family.

Color-coding was used to differentiate between the product's performance-based benefits. Eufora's Beautifying Elixirs contain bodifying products, which are purple; moisturizing products are silver; nourishing is green; and styling is brown. Since Eufora's products are sold in salons, making it easy for consumers to choose the right product in a few seconds was an important design goal.

The color palette is muted to convey an upscale feel, and the earthy tones help convey that controversial ingredients aren't used in the formulations, such as sulfates, phthalates and parabens.

Challenges Executing the Design Concept

The Beautifying Elixirs product line looks refreshing and modern, with colors that coordinate nicely when the products are side-by-side on shelves. Using color in a new way is what separates the line from competitors, according to Derek Hutcheson, packaging and design director, Eufora International.

"When formulating the color palette for a new line, one needs to consider line expansion beyond the initial launch. The color palette for this line goes beyond the four core colors represented in the current family. This ensures an integrated color scheme and smooth transition throughout product line expansion," says Hutcheson.

The four different colors are formulated to have a subtle sheen, and almost look three-dimensional. This is due to the metallic fleck that the colors contain. The bottles and jars are also decorated with a soft-touch coating, as well as a shiny UV varnish.

"One of the greatest challenges, as it relates to color, is getting all of your chosen vendors on the same page. When managing color accuracy, you're faced with numerous inherent challenges beyond the ccoperation of your vendors. The primary task is maintaining color accuracy across disparate substrates, plastics, coatings and finishes. This can be extremely difficult, butcompromose is not an option if one truly values maximum shelf impact," says Hutcheson.

Adding a soft touch coating affects how a color will look on a bottle. Colors will also look different depending on the bottle shape. "Since our bottles are curved, it made it even more difficult to achieve the right colors, because the curve reflects the highlight in the color differently than a straight bottle would," Hutcheson explains.

"The challenge was to keep the bottles elegantly tapered, rather than 'squatty.' We wanted to maintain this tapered shape, but at the same time, we had to get the fill right," says Hutcheson, describing the need to make sure each shampoo and conditioner bottle would have an 8.5-oz. capacity.

The Marketing Strategy

Attracting new customers is always a challenge for any brand, which is why a new product line --- and a new look -- can be crucial to a company's growth. "Our main goal was for Beautifying Elixirs to appeal to all the salons that weren't already carrying our core brand -- to help open new doors, and attract new customers," Bewley explains.

The strategy has been working. Keeping the line small, at nine skus, has helped achieve this goal. "It's less of an investment, cost-wise, for a salon to carry this brand versus our core brand, which has 40 skus," says Bewley.

The package design has also contributed to Eufora's success. Some salons that didn't give a second look to Eufora's core brand in the past, now feel drawn to try Beautifying Elixirs, according to Bewley.
"Our sales team has been able to attract many new customers this year, especially since July," she says.

Bewley adds, "Now that our new customers have been happy with the performance of Beautifying Elixirs, so many new doors are open. We have been happy to find that many of our new customers are now willing to trying our core brand -- so both product lines will continue to grow."