Redesign of 3M Skin Care Line Helps Caregivers Choose the Right Product

In relaunching the 3M Cavilon Professional Skin Care line, 3M Health Care performed global research with end-users to discover their preferences and needs. Redesigned packaging features coding of individual products with bold colors to help clinicians and caregivers easily identify the right product for a specific application.
 
“We began the process over a year ago with global qualitative ‘Voice of Customer’ work. 3M prides itself on leveraging the voice of customer. We have a robust and formal process that drives our packaging development, which has cemented 3M as a leader in innovation and design,” says Marcello Napol, global business director, Cavilon.
With the research, 3M learned how end-users choose and pick product off the shelf and what they are looking for in package design.
 
“Our extensive research in the United States validated what we had learned from our global markets. All users just want their lives made easier,” says Brian Ksicinski, Cavilon brand marketing communications.
“As a leader in package innovation and design, we want to make sure we are consistently and constantly driving loyalty with packaging that promotes ease of use and quality of care,” Ksicinski adds.
 
The seven-product Cavilon Professional Skin Care Line helps prevent skin damage from moisture, friction, and adhesive trauma. Featuring the flagships Cavilon No Sting Barrier Film and Cavilon Durable Barrier Cream products, the line will be extended this month with the launch of Cavilon Antifungal Cream.
 
The vast majority of product is selected and used by caregivers and clinicians for treating patients in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and their homes. Patients also purchase the products online and at durable medical equipment (DME) suppliers.
“With the new packaging, we focused on supporting patients as well as clinicians in formal care settings. The new design helps make product selection much easier for them, and helps ensure they pick the right product for their need,” says Napol.
 
The line’s previous packaging had made identifying the products difficult.
The packaging was revamped “top-to-bottom, front-to-back” in creating a “simple, descriptive, and intuitive” design, Ksicinski says.
“We asked, ‘How do packaging and package design meet user perceptions, preferences, and needs, so that every corner and element of the package has a very specific reason and purpose,” Ksicinski adds.
Package changes encompassed:
 
•           Product names are more descriptive and intuitive. The Cavilon brand name and product names figure prominently at the tops of packages.
•           Product descriptions, features, and benefits are clearly presented with bullets up front with the product names.
 
“We have a broad audience of users, but we learned they don’t necessarily act like consumers. They want to know exactly the product they are choosing, and how it will help,” Ksicinski says.
 
•           Fonts are upsized and changed from serif to a less cluttered sans serif.
•           New background imagery promotes product identification.
•           A color system promotes intuitive product selection.
 
The designers referenced previous Cavilon packaging where subtle purple and blue color bars were used with the Durable Barrier Cream and No Sting Barrier Film to help clinicians know which product to use. “We have carried those colors through in the new design but made the colors more bold and obvious,” Napol says.
 
Relatively simple changes in the font, size, color, and placement made a big difference in promoting identity and correct use, 3M found.
“We went from a staid, cluttered, confusing package to one that gave us design freedom but without taking precedence over user needs,” Ksicinski says.
 
To ensure customers are not caught off guard by the revamped packaging, 3M supported the launch with direct letters to clinicians, materials managers, and distributors, and with postings on the Web portals of channel partners. The sales force distributed tools to clinicians to use in educating nurses and aids at the ward level. A redesigned Web site for the Professional line—www.3M.com/Cavilon—includes a new click-to-chat-live with a customer service representative feature. The Web site serves as a learning destination for clinicians and end-users in their homes, Napol explains.
 
Having established the new packaging, 3M Health Care will be adding enhanced product formulations and new sizes and delivery systems to the Cavilon line.
“We are focused on providing a better experience for our customers by making needed and called for line extensions that improve quality of care and that are easier to use. That will include some novel delivery systems that will be both cost effective and ergonomic, with a particular focus on our No Sting Barrier Film,” Napol says.
“These are really centered on clinician and user feedback. For example, customers have asked for packaging that promotes sterile delivery,” he adds.
 
New single-dose packaging will be introduced for creams and lotions in the Cavilon line.
“As short-term stay patients become more the norm, single-dose packaging supports cost savings and waste reduction, as well as infection control. In using single-dose packaging for short term patients, the caregiver doesn’t have to throw a whole tube in the garbage (following infection control procedure) after the patient is discharged,” Napol says.