Calor Aquaspeed iron 2004

Customer complaints about irons polarise around slow and messy filling, through a hole the size of a postage stamp, and around weight and handleability and an annoying tendency to topple off the ironing board. When Calor approached Seymourpowell to reconsider the Avantis – Tefal's mid-line steam iron range – the overall market for irons key territories (France, Germany and the UK) had fallen by 6% in 2003 and by 7% in 2004. The challenge was to reinvigorate the sector with an innovative product against background of falling sales and a market in decline.

"Innovation is not always about a BIG idea that changes everything; more often it's a bout a series of smaller ideas which come together in a new and compelling way. In spite of a series of challenging technical problems, the Aquaspeed steam iron was designed with a stable and lightweight, but completely open heel. Within this open heel is a large trapdoor, through which the water reservoir can be filled quickly and conveniently."
Dick Powell, Founder, Seymourpowell.

The Aquaspeed, which launched across Europe between January and March 2004, achieved incredible sales. In the UK, Aquaspeed was a number one best-seller. In Germany, where Tefal's share by value in the 45-60 Euro segment (where Aquaspeed sells) went up by 9.9 points in the year following launch, Aquaspeed reached number 4 in the market, where its predecessor ranked only at number 33. In France, Tefal's share in the same segment rose by 13.3 points, taking the product to the number one slot. Global success followed, evidenced by a more than 25% increase in production volumes, and three national independent consumer associations voted the iron 'best buy'.

"Successful products are the oxygen of our business. But alloying visionary innovation with technical feasibility, and then delivering it to consumers at an affordable price is no easy task. Seymourpowell have done this for us…many times!"
Jean-Pierre Lefèvre, Chief Executive of Calor and Director of the SEB Group

Delivering insights
After the design of both high-end and low-end irons, the moment had come, four years after its creation, to reconsider the Avantis – Tefal's mid-line steam iron range. Enter our research and branding team (SPF- Seymourpowell-Foresight), which had not been involved in previous Calor design projects. We briefed the Foresight team to look at a large number of relevant landscapes for the client, including:

1. A timeline showing a visual history of developments in the Tefal/Calor range
2. National market analyses of key irons mapped against price and visual sophistication
3. An analysis of the success or failure of brand language used by Tefal/Calor and its competitors
4. A presentation of the opinions of an independent, external panel of design experts
5. An analysis of the most pertinent general, social, and product trends
6. A strategic formulation of the way forward, based on this initial analytical and trend work

The strategic review identified several potential strands for development, that mirrored changing patterns for use among consumers.

Alloying visionary innovation with technical feasibility
It's hard to design an iron - the complexities of its internal workings are wholly inseparable from its external form, which in turn is determined by its ergonomy on the one hand and its functionality on the other. Then factor in the need for ease of manufacture, low cost and reasonable investment, against a background of product saturation in most markets - and you can get some sense of the difficulty it presents. This is why the word styling (and by that we mean external design) is a wholly inappropriate word for this product. It's a massive design problem…and that's before you even contemplate being innovative.

Our experience of working with creative engineers is that they are rarely at their best trying to solve an abstract problem. But arm them with a credible and compelling vision, so that they can understand exactly what is needed and in what form, and they will examine an array of potential solutions methodically and analytically until they find one that works. Far too many companies rely on their R&D departments as their primary source for innovation. While that's not always a bad thing, what it tends to achieve is the development of a new process or technique for which designers then have to find a use and marketers a user – and that’s the wrong way around!

Technical solutions were developed which helped deliver the vision and these involved a re-think of the iron's basic architecture, its assembly and its technical functionality, requiring many months of development. In the process, these solutions provided Calor with a series of defendable patents. Crucially, the iron communicates its advantages off shelf, without the need for extensive additional POS material or advertising.

Calor is a French company and brand, which belong to the SEB Group. Outside of France, Calor's products are sold under the brand name of Tefal. As a group, they are one of the largest and most successful manufacturers of domestic products and appliances. Seymourpowell's relationship with the group goes back to 1985, when we designed the world's first cordless kettle, the Freeline, for Tefal. In the ensuring years, Seymourpowell has created a considerable number of further innovative products, including deep-fat fryers, vacuum cleaners, beauty-care items, irons, kettles, and toasters.