• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah, May 16, 2011

Between aging Baby Boomers and emerging countries, the $6 billion contact lens market is expected to double in the next five years, and CooperVision has set its sights on a bigger share.

"The category is going through unprecedented changes," David Srere, co-president/CEO and chief strategy officer at Siegel+Gale, which handled the company's rebranding effort, tells Marketing Daily . "It's becoming more commoditized, with new channels -- you can buy lenses online and at supercenters. That has weakened the connection between practitioners and lens wearers. And lenses are more than a medical choice now; they're also a lifestyle decision -- they can change your eyes from brown to green. So we knew we needed to tell a different story."

Part of the problem is that CooperVision -- No. 3 in the market -- didn't have much of a story, he says. While the company markets a full range of lenses, it's best known for fitting those with astigmatism, presbyopia and ocular dryness, and claims to have the most complete collection of spherical, toric and multifocal products available. "So it's been inaccurately seen as a niche player, and outshouted by brands like Johnson & Johnson's Acuvue, Ciba-Geigy and Bausch & Lomb."

After research in 10 markets around the world, the company decided on "a true challenger positioning," he explains. "We needed to create a story and an identity that would stand out. It doesn't have much of a war chest, so this is really a David & Goliath story -- we wanted to zig when those larger companies are zagging."

The new brand platform, themed "a refreshing perspective," does that by bypassing the expected visuals (close-ups of lenses on fingertips, for example, or water splashing through lenses) for a splashy collection of watercolors. "We wanted to get away from the lofty and generic look of our competitors," he says, adding that the colorful graphics will appear on packaging, digitally, point-of-sale, and eventually, in consumer advertising. "The idea was to show people the beautiful, vivid world they can enjoy in these lenses."