Average Jane On Package Design

I went shopping for contact lens solution yesterday and discovered, to my amusement, that my brand of choice has abruptly reversed an incredibly stupid packaging redesign that they’d perpetrated on their consumers not terribly long ago.

I buy Opti-One contact lens cleaner, and for some reason I have a hard time remembering the name. For the first umpteen years I bought the product, it was easy to spot in the store because it came in an orange box. If you’re a contact lens wearer, you already know that every other brand of contact lens solution on the market comes packaged in some variation of blue or green.

Not too long ago – it may have been within this calendar year – I went to Target to get a new bottle of Opti-One and I couldn’t find any. More careful investigation revealed that it was there all right, now repackaged in a dark blue box just like all the other brands. I finally committed the name of the product to memory and went on buying it in the new box, even though each purchase made me a little grumpy at the extra effort it took to discern which of the nearly identical boxes I wanted.

Yesterday I made my way to the contact lens solution aisle and there, shining like a brand-differentiated beacon, was Opti-One in an orange box again! I would venture to guess that not every consumer had been willing to put in the extra two seconds to make the leap to the blue packaging. Sales probably declined. Perhaps the company finally did some market research. One way or another, common sense finally prevailed. Isn’t that refreshing?