A Small Company in Maine Claws Its Way into National Markets With Natural and Playful Identity

Lobsterman's all-natural products are poised go national with fun, inviting labels designed by McCabe, Duval + Associates.

Casco Bay Gardens founder Ghislaine Bérubé had a relatively new product, a name, a vision, and a mission—but no identity. Bérubé named her natural and effective product line of skin care products "Lobsterman's" to evoke her affection for her home state of Maine, where the products were inspired and are now manufactured.

Bérubé enlisted the help of McCabe, Duval + Associates (MD+A), a Portland, Maine-based marketing, advertising, and design firm to develop a dramatic new identity and unified packaging strategy for a launch into new distribution channels. In a category with the successful Burt's Bees brand, MD+A had to forge a Lobsterman's identity from scratch that would be all its own and quickly evoke "all-natural."

"Our challenge was to come up with a concept that would be relevant to a very broad audience and diverse distribution channels," says Christopher Duval, president and founder of MD+A. "In addition, we needed to establish an identity to differentiate Lobsterman's from other natural skin care products."

Made with all natural oils and butters with healing essential oils, the Lobsterman's line is especially formulated for dry or sensitive skin. The line includes the original product, Lobsterman's Balm "seacoast-strength therapy" for hands and skin, as well as Lobsterman's Cool Kiss soothing moisture for lips, and Lobsterman's 3-in-1 Clean, a luxurious all-natural shampoo, hand soap and body wash all in one.

"These products are fabulous for people who don't want skin the texture of dry seaweed above the tide line," says Bérubé, whose inspiration for the line came from Maine's sometimes harsh climate and her knowledge and love of botanicals. Lobsterman's Balm, the first product Berube created, offers "seacoast-strength therapy." The unusual design is a twist-up tube not normally used for applying products to hands and skin. "The product is intended to soften skin and prevent dryness from sun, sea, salt air, wind, work, and play," says Duval.

The original packaging emphasized the products' natural botanical ingredients, and was designed to appeal to the female consumer with its floral motif and script typeface. Buoyed by the growing demand for all-natural personal care products and strong response to her own line, which was available primarily through selected catalogs and websites, Bérubé began to envision a much broader market that included both men and women, with distribution into a wide array of retail channels, from high-end fashion stores to home improvement chains. Led by design director Jessica Simmons, the MD+A team developed a new look that departed dramatically from the original packaging. "We felt it was important to build on the brand's distinctive Maine heritage and quirky name while, at the same time, conveying the sense of quality, wholesomeness and sophistication that was important to the target consumer," Simmons says. "We explored a variety of directions before arriving at a bold, simple design that allows the new name to be prominent in a small space. We also created a whimsical, stylized lobster that serves as a common graphic element and also captures the brand's playful yet sophisticated personality."

MD+A enlisted local illustrator Marty Braun to refine the lobster icon and the seaweed swaying with the tide. The gender-neutral color palette was important to Bérubé, and the new Lobsterman's colors developed by MD+A are warm and understated. The red and purple are deep background colors that are complemented by the secondary background color of soft muted greens.

Simmons emphasizes that they definitely wanted to avoid a lobster color that might hint at the familiar red, cooked lobster image frequently found on bibs. The green made sense to continue the underwater theme, possibly evoking underwater vegetation. For the Lobsterman's Cool Kiss lip moisturizer, accents of cool green punctuate the "hint of mint" which is made with peppermint essential oil.

Bérubé thinks the design is fabulous, and relays the anecdotal evidence that is pouring in from stores. "People get a kick out of seeing it on the shelf," explains Bérubé. Shoppers are compelled to inspect the products further, and often give them a try, she says.

As part of the initial project, MD+A also developed a new website (www.lbalm.com) that reinforces the label design elements even further. On the website, the Lobster even has its own voice: "I feel swell in my shell" and "This stuff's everything it's cracked up to be." MD+A capped off the year with Lobsterman's ads in Yankee Magazine and The New Yorker.