Note: The version that scores higher is on the left in all images. The “Old” and “New” package designs are clearly marked but they aren’t in the same order, image to image.

Morton Salt is one of the most recognizable brands in the American food industry, but in 2019 the brand decided it needed to refresh its look to better appeal to Millennial consumers. The updated packaging is a crisper and brighter take on the legacy packaging, while still maintaining the brand’s signature color scheme and umbrella-wielding “Morton Salt Girl” iconography.

How successful was Morton Salt at creating a design that better appeals to a Millennial audience?

Key Takeaways:

• The new Morton Salt packaging design appeals to Millennial Men, but not to Millennial Women.

• The redesigned product spout is a driving factor in boosting the new packaging’s appeal with Millennial Men.

• A dark band of color at the top of the bottle contributed to low scores with Millennial Women.

For the General US Population, the original Morton Salt packaging remains more appealing with a score of 80.6%, compared to the new design which scores 51.6%. (See photo above.

However, the brand specifically redesigned the packaging for a Millennial audience, and the updated design scores higher than the original for both male and female Millennials. The new design earns an impressive 71% for a Millennial Men audience (compared to the original design’s 25.8%). The scorecards below include an Effectiveness Map overlaid onto each image, where darker green indicates positive consumer attention. Based on this, Vizit can conclude that Millennial Men particularly appreciate the updates to the new design’s spout.

While the new design outperforms the old design amongst a Millennial Women audience, both scores are noticeably low — they earn the lowest rating in the Vizit platform, “Not Effective.” Based on the Opportunity Map overlaid onto each image, where darker red indicates regions of an image that are less appealing to Millennial Women, the dark blue section of the packaging, as well as the brand logo, are contributing to low scores for Millennial Women.

Why does the new Morton saltshaker score low for Millennial Women? When compared to top performing product images, dark colors are not used in the top half of the product packaging. This band of navy blue at the top of the Morton shaker is the key driver in this image’s low score for Millennial Women.