Since 1944, Franklin Electric has been a leading manufacturer and provider of industrial and at-home water pumps. The product technology category innovated over those years, however, the Packaging design didn’t.
When a competitor did finally update their packaging, though, Franklin Electric knew they had to respond, and commissioned us to consult them.

This was an unusual project since they didn’t want us to actually create their new packaging, only to guide their internal design team. This meant establishing a bespoke research process for the project and then channeling the results into a functional guidelines system—an entirely new deliverable for our agency.

As a philosophically consumer-centric company—especially when it comes to research—the suite of tools we employed was chosen not simply to understand the consumer’s purchasing behavior and psychology, but to actually mine their natural creativity for interesting design possibilities.

Probably the most interesting discovery made in the project was the relatively poor consumer test results for the competitor’s packaging update. Indeed their contemporary refresh—amidst such dated competition, including Franklin Electric—had captured attention, but consumers—specifically Franklin Electric’s construction and plumbing professionals—had reservations about the competitor product’s efficacy. Were the products still strong/industrial, they wanted to know, now that the packaging looked “retail”, like everything else in Target?

With this and much more information in hand, we provided a slightly less revolutionary packaging roadmap than FE expected. Rather than simply deserting the utilitarian industry aesthetic, we evolved it, paying special attention to the creation of a functional product classification system.

The Franklin Electric team got to work based on our guidelines, and a few months later we tested redesigns on the customers. Further adjustments were made, and finally, the designs were completed.