Problem: The laundry detergent market is congested and stagnant. New entrants are rare. Locals are even more rare. Multinational brands thematise and shape the sector, making it static: common shapes, colours and designs have been dominating for decades. Brief: Creation of the shape, image, design and visual world of a new, Hungarian line of laundry detergents and softeners, which are progressive, revolutionary and bold. Launching the products in the Hungarian market, through the Tesco chain. Objectives: Raising awareness of the new line of products. Motivating consumers to try them and buy them again; to generate sales. Grabbing a bite from the market, challenging multinational players. Showing the power of locality in the 21st century.

Whenever the words ‘laundry detergents’ are told, nearly everyone thinks about the same image all over the world. As a true game-changer, that’s what Souldrops revolutionises. The iconic shape and cutting-edge style are in fusion with Hungarian thinking and international trends: the creators reimagined a bottle shape typical in the local culture, painted it in pastel colours, and made them trendsetter. Globally. Souldrops is not a rare handicraft product of a small, family manufacture – however, it still becomes artisan in mainstream environment. It is produced as a uniquely designed detergent brand for the general market that breaks all existing rules and conventions, and will appear in every bathroom in the region.

The design symbolises the philosophy of purity and simplicity, the one-of-a-kind shapes and colours make them stand out from the mass. Our goal was to create products that customers will instantly recognise that Souldrops consciously rejects the communication clichés everyone is tired of. With the dogmatic International Typographic Style, where lettering and lines are design elements themselves, we concentrated on comprehensibility, transparency and clarity. We’ve opted for labeling the bottles with screen-printing instead of using vinyl stickers. Furthermore, the bottles became matte, and were given mellow pastel colours. Numbering on the bottles further emphasis transparency, as all numbers indicate the product’s subcategories.

As the line has only been in stores for 2 months, relevant data are not available yet. However, there are promising signs. No communication campaigns have been conducted , however, Souldrops still earned significant unpaid PR publicity. Although the brand has not started any social media activities yet either, many users tag their pictures of the products on social. Self-proclaimed ambassadors and prominent women’s magazines promote the products, all for free, while the most acclaimed design websites (Packaging of the World, The Dieline, etc.) published articles about the cutting-edge design. The factory had to increase its capacity to serve the orders of the Tesco chain. The product line will be launched in 3 more countries in 2 months.