So I’m in the shower at the Rec Center this morning, using yet another brand of body wash. Why, you ask? Well, it’s not that I don’t have a favorite; I do. I am a fan of Axe, even though their ad campaigns and product graphics are, well, juvenile. I think they have a great body wash and I would use it every day, but I don’t.
Why not? No, it’s not because young women were starting to pester me, it’s much more mundane than that.
It has to do with the bottle design. The bottle ‘opens’ by pushing down on the back of the lid, which works like a rocker switch to open the front of the lid. Clever design until the day when, jostled around in my travel bag, the lid opens, spilling Axe all over the inside of the bag. It only had to happen a couple of times to make me realize that Axe was not for travel, only for home. So now, I switch from brand to brand looking for an alternative. The initial criteria is, the bottle can’t be opened accidentally, after that, I consider the actual contents of the bottle.
The moral of the story? the ‘product’ is not just what’s inside the container, it is the entire experience. Axe failed to provide the ‘product’ that I could safely bring to the rec center every morning, and now they are relegated to twice a week use.
Do you know if this is happening with your product? Are there ‘un-intended consequences’ to your design? You better find out!
– RTR
Real Time Rick 