I was at the store last night and remembered that I needed shampoo, so I wandered over and took a moment to look at what they had. I’ve always been fascinated by one brand in particular: Clairol’s “Herbal Essences“, which was the first shampoo I ever saw in a transparent bottle; the color of each type of shampoo (there was one for each type of hair, one for each of several common conditions like dry hair, limp hair, and so on) was tailored to match a logo which featured the flower or fruit which dominated the shampoo’s scent. When it first launched, the TV spots for it — which featured women in the shower making noises associated with, um, “pleasure” while using the shampoo — propelled the new brand to national attention.
The accompanying conditioner, though, didn’t get quite as much love; the bottles were colored to match the shampoo they went with, but were the standard opaque solid-color jobs. It always seemed like the conditioner was an afterthought, and I wondered more than once whether Clairol’s conditioner sales were ever impacted significantly by how plain, in comparison to the shampoo, the packaging was.
The answer may have been “yes”, because my exploration of the bath products at my local Hy-Vee last night revealed that the transparent shampoo bottles, hallmark of the brand, are going the way of the dinosaurs; Clairol has, apparently very recently, redesigned the entire “Herbal Essences” line. The shampoo bottles are now — surprisingly — opaque solid colors. And the bottle shapes have been redesigned; the bottles are taller and thinner, and gently curved along one edge. The shampoo bottles curve on the right, conditioners on the left, and their curves are inverted so that they nestle up to each other on the shelf to form a single unit.
And where previously the different types of shampoo and conditioner were identified mostly by matching scents, with small notes about the type of hair they’d be best for, now there’s a somewhat annoying set of trying-too-hard-to-be-hip names: one that I took off the shelf examine more closely was titled “hello hydration” and had a subtitle which read, “let me soak it to you”.
The back of the bottle had a box which asked, “on average, how many bubbles are in a bottle of champagne?” The answer: “find out on hello hydration conditioner”. There’s also an answer for the question which, one assumes, is printed on the back of the conditioner’s bottle: “Send themselves flowers”. All of this is wrapped up in an explosion of typography which apparently screams “young and modern”: not counting variations in weight, and excluding “fine print” like the ingredients list, I counted six different typefaces.
Between the matched-set bottles and and the trivia that can only be answered by picking up both products, it looks like Clairol’s pulling out all the stops to try to get people to buy the conditioner, too. It’s certainly a slick marketing plan, but I have to wonder whether this will be worth it in the long run. Clairol already had, by a huge margin, the most instantly recognizable brand in the bath products aisle; throwing that away for faux-hip catchphrases and conditioner tie-ins doesn’t feel like the best idea in the world.
Plus, I liked the transparent bottles. I’m going to miss seeing them.
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Men don’t buy conditioner. Then again, men don’t buy Herbal Essences in the first place.
Men also don’t work for a company which uses a piece of fruit as its logo.
Zing!
I don’t think that transparent bottles were unique to Herbal Essences. Suave (my brand of choice) has used transparent bottles for shampoo for a while (and translucent conditioner bottles). Can’t imagine that those silly tie-ins would work, especially if people mix-and-match their shampoo and conditioner.
I think their packaging needed refreshing. There are so many colorful, salon products you can buy just about anywhere now, and doing something to stand out really can’t hurt.
And Wilson’s right, men don’t buy Herbal Essences!
Despite being mistaken for gay on a way-too-regular basis, I feel secure in saying that real men do not buy Herbal Essences. I use Amercian Crew, which may be metrosexual, but at least it’s not gay.
Hehe. :)
Jeff, you should try it sometime. It does more than you think.