The tournament is over. There is only one contestant left, basking in its shining moment…
That’s right - Design Madness 2022 is in the books!
(Oh, did you think we were talking about some other tournament?)
Given the bracket-mania sweeping the nation at this time of year, we decided to indulge in a little madness of our own. We pitted 16 recent, winning consumer packaged goods (CPG) redesigns in a tourney showdown.
Two by two, the redesigns were matched against each other. The key question was: Which of the new designs improved the most over the corresponding old design in consumer purchase preference? Whichever design improved more moved on to the next round.
The 16 contestants were a veritable who’s-who of brands, ranging from the bourbon and baby bath care categories to deodorants and desserts. As the first round came to an end, eight brands (the Great Eight) were left standing:
The field of competitors was winnowed down, meaning the next round was even tougher, with only the best advancing to the Fabulous Four:
As the cream rises to the top, so does the tension level. Who would move on among these stellar redesigns? As it turned out, ohhhh, baby—what a final we had.
It was a baby-bath-care battle for the ages: Dove vs. Aveeno. Both outstanding redesigns, but only one would be left standing. And it was (drum roll)....
This was the equivalent of a three-pointer at the buzzer… It was very close, but Aveeno Baby edged out Baby Dove in purchase preference improvement. What a final!
Congrats to Aveeno Baby… Design Madness Champions, 2022.
All of the participants deserve praise, though, because creating a winning redesign is not the norm. In fact, almost half of all redesigns either fail to create a sales impact or, worse, actually hurt the bottom line.
The high performers in CPG have figured out that the old paradigm of package design was wildly misguided, and that design can have a significant impact on business outcomes. The focus on this forgotten member of the marketing mix is paying dividends.
We’ve compiled a list of best-practice resources supported by data and illustrative brand examples: