Dove Various products

The precise value of 'design' is notoriously difficult to pin down, yet it is unquestionable that skilled design thinking can be hugely beneficial in many areas of business innovation. Acknowledgement of this at the largest of global companies - fmcg giant Unilever - has been achieved by Seymourpowell founding partner Richard Seymour. Through his role as a permanent consultant, Richard has elevated the design agenda at Unilever so it is now clearly recognised as a powerful business tool throughout the company.

Design is a business tool
Unilever, home to some of the most famous of household names - including Persil, PG Tips and Dove - has drawn on Seymourpowell's experience in brand strategy and product innovation to embed design processes across the business, with Richard Seymour helping to set a design agenda from the highest echelons of the organisation. As part of this involvement Richard has become the Consultant Global Creative Director of Design for the Dove brand - a position never held by an 'outsider' before.

From innovation to product
Richard and Seymourpowell have worked directly with Dove to develop a brand strategy that advances the product using strategic innovation and design. Projects developed through this process include:

Project Blanco

Extensive ethnographic research by Seymourpowell's Foresight team included videos of people using the Dove bar in an everyday context, analysing how the product is kept, referred to and used. This revealed that Dove bars were treated as a low value item, with multipacks exacerbating this perception by encouraging packaging to be opened with a knife or fingernail.

The reconceived 'treasure chest' retail packaging design offered greater presence and a more pleasurable opening experience. Crucially, both bar and structural packaging were carefully designed so they could be manufactured on Unilever's existing machinery, saving the company significant modification costs.

Dove deodorant - The Petal Actuator

The aerosol 'button', or actuator, on the Dove Petal deodorant was the first fully-enclosed actuator design of its kind to hit the market. Combining a soft-rubber moulding with solid polypropylene plastic, the resulting button is soft, tactile and sensory, with no visible split lines between the materials. This product innovation improves the sensorial experience from a visual and touch perspective, shifting the aerosol away from a purely functional look in stores and so boosting brand awareness. It also marks out Dove as clearly different from competitor brands.

'A clever use of materials and moulding techniques [produces] an aerosol valve with a unique action that emphasises the feminine and premium position the product occupies,' said Jim Dale, design manager at RPC Group and a judge at the Starpack Awards 2007, where the Petal Actuator won a Gold.

Dove Spa

Dove Spa is a new sub-brand developed as part of a venture to create a complete Dove-branded spa experience. The 39-strong product range comprises 12 different primary packaging solutions - frosted and sensuous to the touch - and four secondary formats whose structural design is predominantly paperboard with a feature layer of polycarbonate subtly reflecting a flare of colour at the base.

On-pack graphic design is minimal, simply featuring a foil-blocked logo. It is the first time in the brand's 50 year history that the word 'Dove' has not appeared on retail packaging. Instead, the iconic 'bird' motif instantly evokes the core brand.

Dove Spa delivered an impressive 50% performance ahead of budget in the first week of sales.