Re-Rebirth of an Icon - the Ecover brand

The Brief

When Ecover and method merged, the CEO had an immediate request: The Ecover brand, which had been around for over 40 years and known as the “O.G.” of green cleaning, was struggling to resonate with consumers, and a recent re-branding effort, that had positioned the brand closer to conventional cleaning brands, had fallen flat.

We were asked to immediately re-stage the brand with new, more contemporary visual identity and packaging and then, in phase 2, completely rethink what “thought leadership” in the category should look, feel and act like.

Phase 1

I had the task of moving the brand into a more contemporary structural design language, to invite those who had previously rejected or abandoned the brand to reconsider Ecover. The brief was to keep enough of the old brand language so to not lose or confuse the existing loyal base. Some of the brand attributes were considered untouchable, for example the base material being HDPE, and the bottles being opaque with colored closures (in line with category norms in the EU). We also had to maximize the label panels due to the multi language variants required in the European distribution footprint. In the end we designed and launched 13 new forms with 3 custom closures in 18 months.

Phase 2

After stabilizing the business, we set out to completely reset the Ecover brand. Rallying around the statement “Boldly Transparent, Definitely Clean” we decided to strip out all unnecessary ingredients and packaging elements to maximize sustainability. We moved the base material to 100%PCR PET to take advantage of higher levels of PCR and recyclability, we removed color from the packaging, formula and closures and where possible, light-weighted components. The result was a very clean (bold even!) aesthetic that prioritizes sustainability. The choice to move into PET made the existing handle design on the larger bottles impossible, so we developed a solution using specially designed recesses in the bottle form to allow finger locators to help with bottle pouring. A lot more to come from this brand.