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Putting the shine back in Turtle Wax

A multi-year packaging design project brings a jumble of trigger bottle styles, colors, and labels under one custom, standardized structure, while energizing the look and feel of the brand.

Pw 177927 Quick N Easy

One of the largest car care brands in the world, Chicago-based Turtle Wax is committed to formulating innovative product lines to meet the ever-changing needs of car consumers and the automotive industry. The 70-year-old, family-owned company distributes car wax, car detailing, and car care products in more than 90 countries around the world and ranks high with consumers in the areas of quality, trust, and familiarity. Just this year, following a survey of more than 40,000 consumers, its Quick & Easy Dash & Glass Interior Cleaner was named Product of the Year for 2016.

However, over the years, as Turtle Wax launched new products, the packaging for its lines became inconsistent. Different SKUs, even within a single category like spray products, utilized different packaging structures, varying shades of the company’s signature green, and disparate label shapes and branding schemes. While there was a family resemblance, there was no standardization.

In addition, for those products that had been on the market for decades, the package aesthetics had become antiquated, resulting in negative consumer connotations of “old school” and “dated.”

In late 2012, Turtle Wax began a rebranding project to refresh, customize, and standardize the packaging across its multiple product categories in the U.S. The first packaging format to undergo the transformation was its trigger spray bottles, which were redesigned with a youthful, energetic new structure and contemporary label graphics that brought the shine back to the brand.

Turtle Wax moves into the Vortex

As Laurie King, VP Global Supply Chain & Operations for Turtle Wax, explains, the trigger bottle format was ripe for change. “We were using standard trigger bottles for probably the last 20 years,” she says. “We tended to make changes on our labels and our graphics more so than with the rigid structures, depending on the marketing plan or strategy for the individual product.”

In making the change, Turtle Wax was looking for an ownable, custom structure, as studies had shown that consumers perceive generic bottles as cheap. “First and foremost, from an aesthetic standpoint, we wanted an updated, fresh look,” King says. “Because we are an automotive care products company, we were also looking for a design that showed motion and speed, with the labels tying into that.”

In terms of functionality, King says the bottle needed to have greater ergonomics, with a shape that was easier for consumers to grip.


To find the best solution, Turtle Wax solicited custom design proposals for its 16-, 23-, and 26-oz PET bottles for 10 SKUs of its Jet Black, Quick & Easy, and Performance Plus lines. After evaluating proposals from multiple suppliers, the company selected a concept from Berlin Packaging’s Studio One Eleven: the “vortex” bottle.

Described by Ann Fisher, Senior Account Executive for Berlin, as having a “forward twisting motion,” the vortex bottle has a unique neck and base design that features deeply angled, whirlpool-like grooves that run from the top to the bottom of the bottle. The dynamic movement of the package structure was then complemented by label graphics suggesting speed.

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