Thinking Outside The Exercise Bottle, You’re Never Too Thin

Some days it’s hard to tell if your glass is half empty or half full.

(Politicians can get pretty creative when they describe the state-of-the-glass, but that’s why they take get the big bucks.)

But for me today is a really good day. I am proclaiming my “glass at least half full”. In fact it’s exactly 85% full,  and I have the numbers to prove it.

Let’s take a look at Gatorade’s Low Calorie sport drink, my current hydration choice while I work out.

Their new and improved product is the sexy, tall red bottle on the right. Meanwhile, the frumpy short, squat blue bottle on the left is what it replaced. After we overcome our excitement regarding the new package, and read the label, we discover that the new bottle’s 16.9 fl oz contents are 15% less than the old bottles 20 fl oz.

Supporting the assertion that my glass is exactly 85% full.

But rather than bitch about naked corporate greed and deception, I’d rather focus on the brilliant package re-design.

You can never be too tall, or too thin.

Somewhere in the bowels (sic) of Gatorade’s product design group is a brilliant engineer, who, when given the task of shrinking the package volume by 15%, didn’t just open Photoshop and resize the image to 85% while keeping the same aspect ratio. Which is exactly what the know-nothing, conniving-fu*k, cheap-suit executive who ordered the resize, aka price increase, would have done.

Instead the (probably young) design engineer re-imagined the product to come up with a taller, thinner, aspirational version. A drop-dead simple change, in a simple product, with brilliant results.

And at the same time increasing my cost and PepsiCo’s profit margin by 15%. I almost don’t mind.

What the packaged goods makers lack in pricing power, they can make up with sizing power.