The past decade has seen a deluge of new entrants in consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) categories, challenging the dominance of many long-standing category leaders. This change has been driven by consumer trends, new distribution channels such as e-commerce, and the rise of social media—to name a few factors.
One of the most effective ways a challenger brand can reach its consumers is through packaging design; compared to other marketing tactics, design is cost-effective and the only touchpoint that reaches 100% of category shoppers.
As the only provider of syndicated design performance data, Designalytics evaluates thousands of package designs across hundreds of CPG categories—and we’ve got our eye on up-and-coming challenger brands. Below, we’ve highlighted five rising stars shaking up the shelf with their package designs.
Category: Seltzer Water
A newer brand to the seltzer water market, Waterloo Sparkling Water is putting consumers in a fizzy. This unconventional, Texas-based startup stands proudly on its tagline, “We Sip Different™” and, according to our consumer evaluation, it has every right to do so.
Despite being fewer than five years old, more than 60% of seltzer consumers are familiar with Waterloo. Moreover, when consumers are asked to locate the product within a competitive set, the average consumer can do so in fewer than four seconds—two seconds faster than most seltzer brands. Waterloo’s design also ranks highest for distinctive assets among top-selling category competitors, even outpacing the category leader, La Croix. The Waterloo logo not only resonates positively with consumers, but ranks among the top 10% in our database (across all categories) for distinctive assets.
Category: Men’s Razors + Blades
No bamboozling here—Bulldog Skincare, which hit the scene in the UK before making its way across the pond—introduced their Bamboo Razor in 2018. Quickly winning awards for its sustainable design and packaging, the Bamboo Razor claimed a corner of the marketplace. Based on our data, the product isn’t the only aspect of the brand that’s making an impact—Bulldog ranks fourth in the category across design performance measures.
Despite being a young brand in the U.S., Bulldog has established powerful assets; the brand ranks in the top 5% of the men’s razors and blades category (and in the top 25% of our cross-category database) for distinctive design assets among brand-familiar consumers. Category users are drawn to Bulldog’s packaging for its originality and sustainability. To top it off, consumers can locate Bulldog’s Bamboo Razor when scanning a competitive set faster than most of its competitors—no bull.
Category: Taco Kits and Seasonings
What started as a family experiment to create delectable, grain-free food has quickly become a noteworthy player in the taco category. Hailing from Texas, Siete Family Foods blends authentic Mexican-American flavors with grain-free, dairy-free, and gluten-free family recipes. The family behind the brand believes every product is a celebration of who they are—and the packaging’s performance in the taco kit and seasoning categories proves there is something worth celebrating.
Despite the brand’s low familiarity among consumers, Siete performs exceedingly well on measures of distinctive assets among those consumers who have encountered the brand before. Siete’s Taco Kit ranks in the top 20% of our database—a rare achievement for such a new brand. In fact, it outperforms both Mrs. Dash and Ortega for distinctive assets. Moreover, consumers like the assets, regarding the design as “healthy,” “colorful,” and “authentic.” Having unique, well-liked brand assets is vital for challenger brands as they work to stand out among competitors and build mental availability.
Category: Tampons
In recent years, discussing feminine care products in the U.S. moved from hush-hush to audacious and unapologetic, with a renewed focus on women’s health. One of the brands narrating this story is Veeda. The Veeda brand centers on sustainability, affordability, and product transparency—with the goal of offering an effective, natural, and chemical-free product in a historically chemical-laden marketplace. And they must be doing something right.
Veeda’s package design demonstrates fantastic communication results in this category, with ownership of two key purchase-driving attributes: “natural” and “good for the environment.” Furthermore, the packaging design possesses two well-liked distinctive brand assets: the ”100% Natural” claim and the large, green-leaf illustration.
Category: Toothpaste (whitening)
Say hello to a rising star in the oral care category. Hello Products has stormed the market in recent years, shaking up the category norms, both in terms of ingredients and package design. Hello’s toothpaste offerings range from activated charcoal and CBD-infused to kid-friendly (CBD-free) variants. The brand messaging is filled with paste-related puns and inviting storytelling, showcasing its values at every turn; Hello has even coined the tagline “naturally friendly™” to demonstrate its dedication to natural products. In fact, it communicates “natural”—a key purchase driver in the category—better than nearly all other top-selling brands in the category.
Our research sunk its teeth into the Hello Activated Charcoal Toothpaste, which performed surprisingly well among category giants such as Colgate Total and Sensodyne Pronamel. The toothpaste category is especially difficult for rookies, as more established brands have multiple sub-brands and command the majority of the market share. That said, Hello grabs and holds attention as well as category leaders, and performs well on measures of findability, despite low brand awareness.
Looking to brush up on your category data? We’ve got you covered.