There's a particular kind of brand anxiety that sets in when sales start softening. The instinct is to look everywhere except the obvious place: the shelf.
The media budget gets reviewed. The promotional calendar gets loaded. The conversation with the buyer gets difficult.
And the packaging, the last thing a shopper sees before they either pick it up or don't, stays exactly as it is. Quietly losing ground.
Standing Out When Everything Looks the Same
Walk down the paper towel aisle in any New Zealand supermarket, and you'll find a category that has operated as a visual dead zone. Generic, functional, forgettable.
Tuffy was no different. An established brand with real market presence, but packaging so commoditised it was nearly indistinguishable from private label. The brief wasn't just a visual refresh; it required a fundamental repositioning of what a paper towel brand means for a modern consumer.
The idea was simple: mess happens. Life is chaotic. Kiwi families aren't embarrassed by that; they just need someone on their side. The positioning, Mess Happens, Get Tuff!, reframed the product entirely. Rather than a utilitarian solution to a boring problem, Tuffy became an ally; energetic, direct, a little bit cheeky. Strong saturated colours, full-colour mess scenarios, and a dimensionality previously unseen in the category, creating an arresting shelf presence.
This is what disrupting category norms actually means, not for novelty's sake, but because standing out is, itself, a commercial strategy. When competitors have collectively trained shoppers to see the category through a dated, generic lens, the first brand brave enough to arrive with a modern perspective owns the aisle. Owning attention on the shelf is a direct path to owning growth.
Read more from Matt Grantham, globally awarded packaging design expert and creative director at Onfire, in the latest issue here
