Men's Personal Care Start-Up Pivots for a Global Pandemic
Branding Design Product User Experience Campaign
Co-Founder/ Creative Director/ Brand Designer
Founded: 2017
Sector: Personal Care, Consumer Staples
Problem: Not enough personal care products branded to the male demographic
Time: 3+ years
The Mission
A group of discerning dads with active lifestyles wanted to create a start-up business and lifestyle brand that would offer a premium line of eco-friendly personal care products for men by Utilizing Naturally Derived Resources that would help us stay cool and confident under any circumstance life throws. Men need self care too and they don't even know it. We need more brands that help educate men on products with active ingredients, addressing real problems guys have and then making the products look like something they’d be proud to have in their bathroom and actually work.
The Outcome
We established UNDR products as a brand and the visual identity from the ground up, capturing the excitement of a new start up company in a new logo and brand identity system. We were able to garner presence online and inadvertently make a product that would help CleanUP covid-19.
The Impact
Since the start of the Pandemic, we've been able to sell out multiple orders of CleanUP hand sanitizer. For each product that was sold, we donated our products to essential workers such as nurses, doctors, delivery drivers and teachers to help keep them safe while on the front line . We also created an initiative to help the less fortunate with personal care products throughout the pandemic to stay safe.
The Goal
Dads are under a lot of pressure. They're expected to be providers and protectors, but also nurturers and disciplinarians. They're supposed to be strong, but also sensitive. And they have to juggle it all while keeping their cool. Unfortunately, this often leads to dads putting themselves last on the list of priorities — which is why self-care should be a priority for them too. To keep up with the life's demands, the modern man puts a premium on staying active with physical activity to combat burnout, help manage stress, reduce the risk of disease, strengthen bones and muscles, and improve their ability to do everyday activities.
Discerning dads and men alike work hard to get the things they have in life, especially their health and wellness. They don’t want a negative perception of their hygiene to compromise that. They want the confidence to live their lives and know everything has been taken care of. They are looking for quick, easy, stylish, and effective products to better their lives in small, measurable ways.
Our goal was to create a brand that help change the conversation about self care for men by creating products that were not only effective but forward-thinking and representative of their active lifestyles.
The Gap
The market for personal care products is a huge one. In fact, there are more than two hundred billion dollars spent on grooming and hygiene products each year in the United States alone.
But what if we told you that most of these products are not made with men in mind?
That's right—most brands market their products to women, even though the average consumer is actually male.
This is a problem because it means that men often have to deal with an onslaught of feminine-looking products that don't work for them. And when they do find a product that does work for them, it's often hard to find at their local stores—and expensive to buy online!
The Start UP
In 2017 we started the journey to create our first product, a men's ball powder deodorant called Under Powder. It was designed to avoid moisture throughout the day and maintain freshness where it mattered most.
There were claims of talcum powder causing long-term health risk with a prolonged use. This was a sign for that we were on the right path...
Fast-forward a year later, we rebranded the project from Under Powder to UNDR products: Personal care solutions made with men in mind—Utilizing Naturally Derived Resources to help maintain a healthy routine of hygiene for him.
Brand Attributes & Mission Statement
By brainstorming and prioritizing brand attributes in various categories we created the basis to put together a mission statement:
Culture How would our community describe us?
Target Groups How would we describe our target audience?
Voice How do we want to sound to others?
Feeling How do others feel after being in contact with us?
Impact What tangible impact do we have on others?
X-Factor How are we different from others?
Under Products opens a dialogue about men’s hygiene, encouraging men to “own” their daily grooming routines and talk about what works.
Target Group and Users
As a startup company, our team- the founders, were the users we were creating for. Make a product for ourselves and what we wanted to use was the basis for this venture.
To understand the market, we segmented the types of users in male grooming and identify the user personas from the more traditional sense to the ever-evolving landscape of personal care for men.
Finding a Visual Style
As the creative lead and designer on the team, the aim was to develop a high-end look and feel through the various vessels and packaging we used for the products (think VOSS or Fiji water for personal maintenance products).
I built the brands visual identity through the mission statement and our brand attributes to start putting together imagery for a moodboard.
Clean and simple was the approach, but we wanted to have a graphic language to help convey our messaging, tone and voice. I created a word-list of free-flowing thoughts that came to mind when thinking of the words UNDER and POWDER.
“I cross out words so you will see them more. The fact that they are obscured makes you want to read them.”
— Jean-Michel Basquiat
I experimented with the word UNDER using the concept of crossing out the word. The idea of "UNDER" rather than crossed out was implemented through our design language.
This is UP
I created a simple graphic that pairs our brand initials with a simple horizontal, semi-translucent bar – to convey being “under” protection with our product. The ‘UP’ is hidden and masked, turning it into a graphic device and adaptable language unit, which can be added to a wide variety of root words across the identity. Alongside the initials of the brand name, the word ‘UP’ is capitalized and utilized across the identity, creating a visual language that helps reinforce the brand.
Updating the name and look
Under Powder was used as the operating name for the company. When it was time to establish and register the company, we need a name for the brand not justa product name. Thats when UNDR products was born. Upon the name change, I revisited the logotype to further explore the concept of "UNDER".
The word mark “UNDR products” is a subtle execution to the concept of being “under” or covered without the bold graphic treatment of the bar. The typography is cropped on the top and bottom of the letterforms to show the inverse of the covered space of what would be under the semi-translucent bar, while the word PRODUCTS is nestled just below or “under” the baseline to hold UP and prop UP the brand, which in essence, speaks to our belief in the products we are offering.
The Gamble
In the end of 2019 we were focused on preparing for the the launch of Under Powder. With the success and feedback we collected from testing at various events all year long, we were ready to go to market in the beginning of 2020 and starting selling online.
The Pivot
We began putting together samples of UNDR powder and started exploring other products like muscle rubs, personal wipes and other ways to deliver the hand sanitizer in different bottles in preparation for other events scheduled to have users test.
Then in mid March of 2020, the world shutdown; coronavirus would start to spread around the world, and we were faced with a dilemma: What does this mean for the launch of Under Powder? Is there anything we can do as company to help?
The answer was right under our noses—literally! CleanUP was initially made to be a token of appreciation for participating in our test, but it turned out to be so much more. We decided to put our launch on hold and focused all of our resources on production and distribution of hand sanitizer to aid essential workers on the front lines.
The Gain
We believe the pivot from Under Powder and the production of the bottle to focusing our resources on providing CleanUP hand sanitizers made a significant impact on the community.
We've been able to provide essential workers on the front lines with the hand sanitizer they needed to keep themselves safe—and we've also worked with local organizations, gyms, events and charities to distribute hand sanitizer to those in need.
CleanUP has been a fan favorite at local gyms and barber shops in our communities, to medical professionals and people that are in the know of UNDR products. Once there were shortages of hand sanitizer during the pandemic, the low quality of products that were offered were significantly affected and users started to take notice about what was good and was not.
Conclusion
Our overall goal was accomplished. Although we put Under Powder on the back burner, inadvertently creating a hand sanitizer before the start of global pandemic helped us pivot and refocus our resources on contributing to our community, essential workers and people at risk to staying safe and catching the spread of the virus. Whether plans changed or didn't last all together, our pivot to create something that would be useful to a global crisis would satisfy any return on investment.
As a company, we fell short of keeping the energy and momentum of the group after our initial success and maintaining a work-life balance seemed to be the biggest challenge we did not overcome as group all together.
In the the end, the setbacks put us on different paths as founders, but the slew of skills that were unlocked throughout this experiment have been key takeaways and new life skills earned. Learning how to adapt, use critical thinking, interpersonal skills and working under pressure during a global pandemic prepared us for the next decade to come in this new normal we live in. Read more about how it all started here.
