Only Good Body Bars

Agency: Milk Brand Agency
Creative Director: Ben Reid
Design Director: Sarah Melrose
Designer: Jeannie Burnside
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: Only Good – API Consumer Brands
Location: New Zealand
Packaging Contents: Body soap
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Cardboard
Printing Process: Foil & deboss

Context
With current consumer trends firmly towards health, wellness, simplicity and sustainability, the humble soap is making a comeback – especially among millennials.

Building on their success with body & hand wash, soap seemed a natural move for the Only Good brand. However, it’s a diverse, competitive and highly saturated market – with products focused on everything from ‘scientific and efficient’ right through to ‘clean and natural’. Only outside the supermarket do you see the trend towards beauty.

As you’d expect, among all these categories brand and cut-through play a pivotal role.

Approach:
The success of Only Good has been based on bringing a department store aesthetic to the supermarket. We wanted to do the same with soap – take it from an everyday functional product to a beautiful interior accessory. And achieve maximum cut-through on the supermarket shelf.

Execution:
The ‘experience’ was key, from start to finish. First we created four different soaps to appeal to a variety of tastes, males included.

Each soap was named to reflect both the ingredients and the experience of using the product. We then created four bespoke illustrations inspired by our names, and rendered them in a way to reflect the sensation of the soap on your skin. The different colours were designed to appeal to our different consumers; male, female, old and young. They also made the soaps feel personal, collectible and gift-able.

The packaging was foiled, debossed and printed on textured stock to elevate it above traditional supermarket soap. It also hero-ed our ‘all natural’ messaging, a key feature of the Only Good brand. Even the soap itself was embossed to give it a premium feel.

Effect:
From the box through to the smell and the embossed messages on the bars themselves, the design created real ‘me’ moments. The beautiful aesthetic also broke the natural category, which to date had been very basic and paired back (think Ecostore).

In short, Only Good elevated the simple soap to that of a design object, making purchase something to feel excited about. An inexpensive treat that is good for your mind, your body and the planet.