Design Sells

I have just discovered a blog that will be on the top of my reading list. Airbag, and its author, has a great style. Earlier this month Greg Storey wrote about style and selling, titled Soap to Nuts.

Method soap products are sold in very attractive packages. The labels are minimal. However, the shapes of the containers are certainly modern. The founder basically designed the brand, and thought about the product after the fact. Quite a gamble; it worked.

As you might have guessed, Method’s products are priced higher than the off brand in the green plastic. It is obvious their targeting persons that don’t want just any plastic soap container sitting next to the kitchen sink. I wonder how well it does as an impulse purchase. I’m guessing most that buy it for the first time never saw the product before; if it’s sitting on a store shelf, it’s hard to overlook.

So soap is soap is soap, but design is not design is not design. Design sells, but all designs are not equal; it’s still about target audience. The moral of the story is, you can take Martha Stewart to the Method soap, but you can’t make her wash up.