New Products are Sleek and Serve a Purpose Beyond Emergencies
Indeed, the new safety-chic strategy is playing out across retail. Home Depot Inc. this fall will launch a HomeHero line of safety products, which features among other things a white fire extinguisher resembling a coffee thermos that needs only one hand to operate. Last Christmas, Black & Decker Corp. pushed its new Simple Start car-battery booster, which requires no jumper cables and plugs into a vehicle’s cigarette lighter. It also can charge a cellphone. Target Corp. has partnered with the Red Cross to sell a $29.99 First Aid Emergency Preparedness Starter Kit, complete with children’s activity book and crayons, that is stylish enough to sit on a living room bookshelf.
“People just haven’t thought about redesigning these categories,” says Peter Arnell, founder of the design and marketing firm Arnell Group, a division of Omnicom Group Inc., which helped craft the Home Depot HomeHero line. “In the old days, you had a clunky old red fire extinguisher and you were going to hide it. That doesn’t work anymore. The world has changed.”
The New York Times - Business Day
The New York Times - Business Day