The COVID-19 pandemic changed the landscape of the world. Now with their lives on the line, people began to realize that one’s health and hygiene was serious, and proper precautions needed to take place if one was going to survive not just COVID, but any illness that may rise. And with that, Lysol began to fly off shelves across the country. People everywhere were buying every Lysol product they could find. What was once a common household item became the reason for in-store brawls, as Lysol products increasingly became more scarce.
That’s when my attention turned to Lysol. As Lysol swiftly became a hot commodity, the designer in me began to analyze the brand, specifically the packaging. The longer I looked, the more issues I noticed. “Lysol is #1”, I thought to myself, “It’s a shame that its packaging is so outdated”. After looking over the packaging, I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t just the packaging that needed updating, but the entire Lysol brand, especially when trying to appeal to the modern-day consumer. With that realization, I took on the challenge of redesigning one of America’s leading disinfectant companies.
The first issue I needed to tackle was the logo. When rebranding large companies such as Lysol, it’s extremely important to understand what’s at stake. Because of the magnitude of the company, each asset (e.g. logo) holds a lot of brand equity. The risk associated with a dramatic change in the branding of such a large company would be monumental, and even life-threatening to the business itself, as consumers would find it more difficult to recognize the brand (causing market-share loss, public outcries from consumers, and possibly even the death of the business). That is why I decided to take a more evolutionary approach to designing the logo: I wanted to create a mark that felt more modern, but still maintained the brand’s heritage. I took a script typeface called Lemon Jelly, and adapted it into a unique brand mark that blended both handwritten and cursive elements for easier readability (as most modern-day consumers cannot read cursive. I wanted consumers to read Lysol, not just know it looks like Lysol). The result was easy to read, timeless, and still maintained the historical script feel of Lysol.
From there, I tackled the packaging. I personally felt that the designers tried to pack a lot of information onto the label, causing it to look cluttered and old. As a result, I decided to scale things back and let the design breathe. Being that the target audience is young mothers, I felt that this would be the best course of action to appeal to a modern millennial mother. It created a visually appealing and memorable label that could translate well across the scent spectrum.
From there, the next major area I tackled was the advertisements. I felt that a new brand would need some help when it came to promotion, so I created the slogan, “The Next Generation”. This not only pointed to the next generation in Lysol branding, but also its target audience: the next generation of mothers.
At the end, the rebrand turned out exactly as planned: up to date, appealing, and effective.
