In 2007, Chase Design Group was hired to redesign the packaging and bring new life to the Gain brand. Launched in January 2008, the new Gain packaging engaged shoppers at the shelf, driving steep increases in trial and a 16% year over year increase in sales.

By 2006, the Gain brand had grown to be the second largest laundry brand in the P&G portfolio, generating over a billion dollars in annual sales. Unfortunately, the branding and packaging needed to work harder in order to support Gain’s continued growth. The overwhelming “sameness” of products on the laundry aisle all aimed at clean-seeking consumers led us to identify an opportunity for a brand with emotional appeal.

The redesign process started with trend research and in-depth consumer interviews. It was clear that the desire for scented products was quickly expanding beyond traditional candles and air fresheners. The consumer research and ethnography revealed that Gain users were not only at the forefront of this expansion, but engaged with scent on a deeper, emotional level. They professed a special love of the scent experience Gain brought to their laundry routine. It was this crucial combination of macro market trend and focused consumer insight that drove the redesign.

Bringing the relationship that the Super Scent Seeker had with scent to life involved a great deal of exploration into which types of verbal and visual language moved her. The resulting design development built a strong foundation for the new brand look.

A broad packaging development process explored both evolutionary and revolutionary approaches to updating the brand. Each option was tested with consumers to understand which elements were working to create the best communication of the Gain equity.

New designs feature abundant scent ingredients and lush illustrations that evoke the Gain scent experience. The new Gain brand look was extended into a brand guide that could be used by all agency partners. The result is a cohesive expression of the brand that translates across all touchpoints. To accompany the launch of the redesigned packaging, the Gain “to smell it is to love it” campaign leveraged the new look to create a substantial brand buzz that drove an instant spike in sales. The award winning campaign involved all agency partners and unified all touchpoints from broadcast through to packaging with a consistent brand look.

When CVS decided to launch its own standalone beauty retail offering, they asked Chase to partner on the development of the brand. Chase worked with the CVS team on every aspect of the new concept from consumer research and naming to the final design and execution of retail graphics, marketing collateral, advertising and web design. The first store opened in November 2008, was awarded “Best New Retail” by WWD and earned a RACie award from the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association.

CVS/pharmacy had a great idea – take prestige beauty retailing out of the mall and make it accessible. They had embarked on this new retail concept and reached out to Chase to help them bring the retail vision to life. Time was short and immediate work was necessary to accurately position the brand and re-direct the internal teams.

To understand the competition, Chase performed a competitive audit of primary competitors. Sephora, Ulta, and Boots were among the retailers studied. The strengths and weaknesses of each were reviewed and in-depth research was done to better understand what makes these companies successful. CVS/pharmacy’s concept was plotted to assess its relative brand position.

A persona is a composite person based on real data who helps us clarify the brand position. Three personas were created for the Beauty 360 brand. The “styling mom” was the embodiment of our “fashion active” woman and became the key persona. Identifying her helped us to focus our work toward a single consumer. In the end, her opinion would determine the success or failure of the new brand.

We use moodboards to communicate the fusion of ideas, words and images. These boards help us develop a visual language that will resonate with our consumer. Through review and discussion of the raw creative concepts, we worked together with CVS to reach consensus on the visual language. Our final creative direction contained the guiding principles that informed every design deliverable for Beauty 360.

The bold, fresh and sophisticated flagship store in Washington DC is the first of many. The store design features large graphic panels, window banners and light boxes showing product montages in seasonal themes. A primarily white interior and simple wayfinding signage reduces the potential for visual chaos created by the wide variety of beauty and fragrance brands on display. In addition to retail graphics, collateral and advertising design, Chase developed a brand guide to allow CVS/pharmacy’s internal teams to create support materials with a clear and consistent brand voice.

In-depth research, a clear strategy and great design helped reposition and relaunch this playful, sexy women’s shoe brand. The new Chinese Laundry logotype, packaging and flexible brand art allow them to keep up with constantly changing fashion trends without losing their core brand identity.

Chinese Laundry was losing market share to competitors like Steve Madden and Skechers. Out of date identity and package design, inconsistent branding, and unfocused marketing were a few of the challenges. With only a fraction of the advertising and marketing budgets of their competitors, it was important to understand exactly where to focus our efforts. To craft a successful design solution, we needed a clear understanding of our client, their market, and their specific business problem.

To understand the competition, Chase performed a competitive audit of Chinese Laundry’s primary competitors. Three brands, Skechers, Steve Madden and Kate Spade were identified as brand heroes due to their high sales, profitability and brand recognition. A series of interviews with consumers, retail buyers, sales associates and internal sales personnel were conducted to gain a deeper understanding of current Chinese Laundry brand strengths and limitations.

Psychographic mapping, persona development and emotional targeting were used to develop a clear picture of the consumer’s world, their aspirations and behavioral cues. The final aspirational map and emotional target provide a key validation test for all our creative development, reminding us that our work is only successful if it moves, touches and inspires our consumer. In the end, only the consumer’s opinion will determine the success or failure of any brand or product.

We search for the perfect fusion of ideas, words and images using moodboards and style explorations to develop a visual language that will resonate with our consumer. Through review and discussion of the raw creative concepts, we work together with our clients to reach consensus on the visual language. Our final creative direction contains the guiding principles that will be found in every design deliverable.

Playful, sexy art communicates the Chinese Laundry brand personality loud and clear. The new Chinese Laundry logotype is built on a custom type treatment that unifies the brand family. The hummingbird art adds a light-hearted, feminine touch. A small marketing budget meant that the shoeboxes had to work overtime to build brand visibility. Eye-catching brand art separates the mid-tier and discount brands and creates a strong brand presence in both categories. A brand guide allows the client to create support materials, trade show elements, booth design and unique promotions such as the wrapped Mini Cooper with a clear, consistent brand voice.

Cranium hired Chase to help them get their packaging back on track. Since Cranium's wildly succesful first game, the company had introduced nearly fifty products to market. Each succesive product lost some of the elements that made their original game so unique. It was Chase's job to discover, define, and restore the essence of the Cranium brand.

Based on the illustrations of Gary Baseman, the original Cranium game had a unique handmade quality that set it apart from its competitors. Newer Cranium products had lost all of the painterly qualities of earlier products and many did not use the four original characters.

Chase did an exhaustive survey of other brands in the category, as well as other non-direct competitors that are sold in the same retail locations as Cranium. This research allowed Chase to suggest directions Cranium could take to stand out amongst its competitors.

Developing a design strategy for Cranium involved rediscovering the brand’s unique visual equities. After identifying the core elements that made Cranium unique Chase was able to recommend a new strategy and a preliminary set of rules for all Cranium packages to follow.

Chase proposed several different design approaches that would help Cranium reach their goals. Each direction was explored and assessed for its ability to communicate the Cranium brand in visually competitive store environments.

After landing on a design direction, Chase then extended the design across Cranium’s entire line. Chase created a line look that was unique and recognizable, but flexible enough to accommodate any type of product. The redesigned packages restored the fun, hand-made qualities of the original Cranium game.

Chase’s package designs were so well recieved that Cranium engaged Chase to provide industrial design direction, game board illustrations, and content design for many products.

Chase was hired by Starbucks to create “Starbucks Signature,” a flexible design program including a style guide and assets for a line of products that would reflect the core attributes of the Starbucks Brand.

Starbucks had been selling coffee related gift and house-ware products for years. Most had a simple logos applied and were not designs created specifically for Starbucks. Chase was hired to create an entirely new program of products that would accurately express the Starbucks brand through shape, materials, color and pattern.

The first stage of work included in-depth assessments of current product offerings and research to develop an understanding of core brand equities. An exploration of product trends and manufacturing options was also included.

The design strategy included a “deconstruction” of the visual and emotional ingredients of the Starbucks brand. Starting with the core green, circular logo and extending into fashion and home trends, potential design directions were presented and reviewed to determine which had the best “Starbucks flavor.”

The design program included several different design “themes.” Each included colors, materials suggestions, product recommendations, prints, and icon assets. The themes were designed to be flexible so that assets from different themes could be mixed to create fresh looks. The final program included a guideline document that would allow Starbucks’ in-house team to develop consistently on-brand products using a variety of different vendors and materials.

Starbucks Signature products include coffee-centric products like mugs and cups but also extend to include small games, stationery and home decor, all expressing the core Starbucks brand. Each Signature product collection is unique but all reflect the core Starbucks brand character through consistent use of colors, materials and design motifs provided in the guidelines. Assets from the style guide are designed to be used alone or in combination to create different product lines that can be succesfully mixed and matched in the store environment.

The Polly Pocket! rebrand included a style guide that delineates a consistent brand look for toy and licensed product packaging as well as the products themselves. The new Polly look is clean, graphic and consistent across all product categories.

The Polly Pocket! brand was acquired by Mattel with plans to expand into licensed product. The toys were successful, but the brand lacked a coherent identity that could be leveraged into other categories.

The Polly Pocket toy had been evolved and extended into two separate brands with very similar logos. The research indicated that girls ignored the distinction and simply referred to her as “Polly.” The new identity retains color and style equity from the original brand, but is simpler and easier to read logo. The oval containing shape was retained for toy packaging and removed for licensed product.

Creating a strong licensing program was the goal of all the previous brand development. A strong licensing program merges the core attributes of the brand with seasonal forecasting and fashion trends. For the Polly Pocket program, mood boards were created to demonstrate the look and feel of apparel, graphics and hard lines for each season’s guide.

Using research data and interviews with girls in the age range, Chase was able to define the 5-8 year old “sweet spot” for Polly Pocket’s strongest target. Based on that knowledge, an older, aspirational age of 12-15 was created for the Polly character. Polly’s brand personality “The global girl on the go.” and the brand mantra, “Small delights. Big surprises.” helped to differentiate her from the fashion and romance positioning of Barbie.

The Polly Pocket! rebrand included a style guide that delineates a consistent brand look for toy and licensed product packaging as well as the products themselves. The new Polly look is clean, graphic and consistent across all product categories.

The Polly Pocket! rebrand included a style guide that delineates a consistent brand look for toy and licensed product packaging as well as the products themselves. The new Polly look is clean, graphic and consistent across all product categories.

The success of the design for the licensing program let to an entire rebrand for the toy line as well. The Polly Pocket! rebrand included logo re-design and a cleaner, stronger brand look for toy and licensed product packaging. The new Polly trade dress stands out at retail and supports a fresh, hip brand position that appeals to girls and their parents.