Circle and color: new “BARRIER” packaging

The BWT BARRIER company is the No. 1 brand in Russia in the field of water purification with a market share of more than 40%.

More than 25 years of successful work, dozens of patents for unique technological developments, a modern logistics complex and its own research center: all this allows the company to provide consumers with clean and healthy water not only from Kaliningrad to Sakhalin, but also around the world.

Nevertheless, from the studies conducted by the company, some accumulated problems with the current designs of filter jugs and replaceable cassettes were revealed. A large percentage of people violate the terms of replacing the cartridges in the filter jugs, as they simply cannot remember the brand of the jug among the same offers, or do not know the resource of the replacement cartridge. This leads to the refusal of the purchase, or to the purchase of a new jug with a cassette in the kit.

Based on these observations, the BARRIER company decided to reposition the brand and change communication in the direction of maximum usability. Getbrand began a global update of the BARRIER brand by redesigning filter jugs and interchangeable cartridges.

In any hardware store, a shelf with filter jugs is a place of archaic and similar design, where 4 major players competed among themselves for the most beautiful mountain landscape and cup of tea. The BARRIER needed an uncompromising but elegant solution in order to stand out, and such a solution was found.

Two fundamental changes were introduced:

First, we abandoned the use of color photo images of the cartridge and filters. On the one hand, this emphasizes the status of the brand, its quality, and on the other, the assortment matrix of the company has more than twenty models of filter jugs alone, where each model has at least one and at most five different color designs. Repeating shades on different models would be even more confusing. The introduction of individual transparent stickers indicating the configuration and color of the filter jug ​​made it possible to optimize costs in the production of packaging, as well as improve logistics, without depriving the consumer of the opportunity to choose their favorite color.

Secondly, we have introduced a new color identification that combines all BARRIER premium products into a single understandable system. The new design consists of two lines. Products with additional functionality, extended life or having an electronic indicator of resource control for filter jugs are highlighted in a line with a black background. A line with a white background — standard water purification solutions and classic jug models.

The key link of the entire system is a bright colored circle, the only colored element of the new packaging (except for a transparent sticker indicating the color of the filter jug), fixing each product with its own color. This allowed us to create a clear brand block of products on the shelf and solve the problem with the choice. Now the entire BARRIER product category is subordinated to the general visual uniformity, which made it possible to close the problem of the “second purchase”.

One of the separate tasks was the development of the conversion component of new packaging. Here it was necessary to solve three important problems at once:

• as simple and clear as possible to talk about the resource of removable cartridges, and the need for timely replacement;

• clearly explain what characteristics are specific to a particular product compared to competitors;

• to convey to customers the importance of a responsible attitude to the environment through the purchase of BARRIER products.