Hair care packaging delivers a more upscale message - packaging design becomes important for discount retailers

Discount Store News, March 21, 1994

Nationwide DSN Report

"Upscale" and "sophisticated" were words once only applied to hair care packaging found in salons. No more.

Recent product restages and more upscale-looking packaging are adding excitement at retail. Discounters are using packaging to differentiate their offerings from their competitors'.

"Hair salons no longer have a monopoly on attractive, upscale packaging as hair care products sold at the mass market level reflect these same attributes," said a spokeswoman at a leading hair care manufacturer. "Consumers want a product that has salon-type packaging, but one which delivers a value."

For example, at Kmart's Sayreville, N.J., store, two skus of Mr. Charles' Salon Formulas, marketed as a generic formul of Nexxus and Paul Mitchell Awapuhi Shampoo, are available. These are classic salon brands, each with distinctive packages. Jhirmack hair care products are offered, too. Until the early '80s, Jhirmack was only available at hair salons or salon supply houses. It's now readily available throughout the mass market, and not in salons.

Kmart and others are offering these relatively high-end brands, and others that look and perform like them, in response to consumer demands for top performing products that give users the "look" and "feel" of salon products in packages with a quality, high-end image. However, some of the salon brands are fighting back.

For example, the makers of Paul Mitchell hair care products are now running TV spots that disclaim as not true Paul Mitchell products any items bearing that name that are not purchased at salons.

As a result, packaging integrity and identity has become a big issue at retail.

Aussie brand shampoos, a popular upper-priced mass market brand, retained its signature kangaroo on the package of its recently introduced Aussie Intermissions Color Enhancing Shampoo to ensure its tie to the Aussie name, even though the product is a little different from the rest of the offerings. The packages in the five-sku line also were color-coded to make it easier for consumers to find the right product for their hair type.

"Packaging is very important. The packaging for Intermissions is different than our other lines because we wanted to give the line more of a salon look, but one that would still have the reflection of Aussie," said Muggs Lerberg, a spokeswoman for Redmond, makers of the Aussie products line.

When Freeman Cosmetics' restaged its very popular Botanicals hair care line, it did so with new packaging that featured vivid, full-color freehand illustrations of key natural ingredients in each of the products. The company also used the same strategy in the more recent restage of its Sea Mist line.

"We drive our business by what will get a consumer to buy our product and what will get her to buy it again," said Larry Freeman, president, Freeman Cosmetics.