Brand: Gillette Labs
Category: Men’s razors and blades
Parent brand: Gillette
Welcome to our Redesign of the Month series—where we spotlight one deserving brand harnessing the power of design to make an impact, tell a story, and outshine its previous packaging. Hundreds of current category consumers evaluate the old and new designs across a wide range of performance areas, including purchase preference, communication, mental availability, and design element resonance. Notably, Designalytics’ testing outcomes align with actual sales performance more than 90% of the time.
Congratulations to this month’s redesign winner: Gillette Labs.
For decades, Gillette enjoyed a virtual monopoly on the men’s razors market…but as often happens in stagnant categories, times quickly changed. There was a flurry of competition in the 2010s from upstart (now mainstream) shave brands like Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club, and the legacy grooming brand needed to take action. One part of its approach to a shifting market was the launch of Gillette Labs in 2018.
Originally tagged as an upscale sub-brand, Gillette Labs’ products have since settled in alongside its mass-market brethren in the shaving aisle. The previous packaging was simple and streamlined—a somewhat dusky, minimalist look meant to signal premiumness—and the brand understood that its evolving positioning would require a design shift.
Gillette Labs created a dramatically different design that still looks familiar, which, for an established brand, is an impressive feat. It started with color and shading.
The shift in hues is relatively understated but important. While the previous design’s color scheme was largely black with a more muted neon-lime green accent, the new look uses a brighter, bolder, hyper-saturated version of this shade that is more prevalent and more likely to pop on the shelf.
The imagery changes, on the other hand, were anything but subtle. The previous design’s product visuals again leaned premium—the razor is fully vertical, static, and seemingly in shadow. The look seemed to borrow from the aesthetics of other categories—particularly gaming and electronics—that suggest higher-end “hardware.”
Conversely, the new look brings the razor forward and at an angle, while adding arrows to indicate the razor’s pivoting action and providing an inset, zoomed-in image of the blade and exfoliating bar. On the handle and stand, the shading is starkly different—whereas the previous version showed these in black and a charcoal gray, the updated look features flashes of silver.
The branding changes are notable as well. On the prior packaging, a black logo was placed at the top; the refreshed version includes a large and dual-toned (white and neon-green) logo that is both larger and more central.
The amount of information on each package was also a big difference. The old look highlights only the exfoliating bar and suggests a “shave as quick and easy as washing your face.” The updated design, however, spotlights the product’s “5 integrated technologies” and “lifetime warranty,” and notes that the razor offers “Gillette’s best shave.” Both designs reference the exfoliating bar, though the previous packaging gives it much greater prominence.
This redesign was a clear winner: 83% of consumers preferred to purchase the new design over the old.
Moving from a minimalist design to a more engaging and communicative one paid major dividends for Gillette Labs. Consumers seemed to relish every choice the brand made with this upgraded version.
That started with the logo, which was larger and placed closer to the center of the package, rather than at the top. Its prominence likely aided in findability performance—consumers could find the new look considerably faster (4.9 seconds vs. 5.5 for the old) and with greater accuracy (79% vs. 71%).
The imagery of the razor was more dynamic, providing not only active elements (the arrows) but dimension… literally. Consumers regularly commented on the three-dimensional image, with one saying, “I like that the razor is 3D on the packaging and looks like it is popping out of the picture,” and another adding, “I like the way this is photographed. It looks like it is in action.”
Importantly, the redesign focused on saying important things better—a smart move considering that Designalytics has found there is an 87% correlation between improved communication and positive in-market outcomes. The brand's choice to move from highlighting ease to touting efficacy and showcasing benefits clearly struck a chord with category buyers.
According to Designalytics data, consumers are most interested in whether a men’s razor provides a “smooth shave” (#1 attribute), a “comfortable shave,” (#2) and a “close shave” (#3) and the refreshed look dominated the old in communicating each of these essential purchase drivers. In fact, it bested its predecessor in communicating every single one of the top 12 most important attributes, and by an average margin of 59 points.
Wins
Opportunities
One area of opportunity emerged for the new design. Although both designs call out the exfoliating bar, the previous look gave it greater prominence. Several consumers noted this as a clear advantage. “I like the inclusion of the exfoliating bar,” said one of the previous design, while another commented “It is easy to see it has an exfoliating bar which is what makes it different from other razors.” So while the new design performed far better overall, the brand could take this consumer feedback under consideration for its next refresh.
“It is the best razor made by Gillette and comes with a lifetime warranty.”
“The visual of the razor shows a lot of detail. It gives you an idea of what is contained inside.”
“It looks like there is more information on this package and I like how much larger the razor is on this one. The other package looks like they left something off.”
Our goal behind highlighting impactful redesigns is to help brands understand market reactions to design changes and make intentional design decisions. We create a full report of these insightful case studies for every brand redesign in our cross-category database. These value-add tools are created automatically for our clients who subscribe to syndicated category data. For more information on this redesign report or others, contact us.