Ashton & Parsons wished to expand their product offering beyond just teething and into new spaces. They also wanted to take this opportunity to modernise the brand while retaining its essence, due to its strong equity and reputation.

We explored two possible routes for product expansion, into baby care and into family oral care, and tested new product concepts across these routes with consumers. The results gave us the green light to expand Ashton & Parsons into baby care, evolving from ‘teething’ to ‘soothing’.

The feedback on the existing brand was that although it felt safe and trustworthy, it also felt cold, tired and old-fashioned. We needed to retain the heritage and familiarity of the A&P brand while improving modernity perceptions, making it more relevant to today’s parents.

With A&P having been established in 1867, there was a treasure trove of brand history to play with. A deep dive uncovered some past gems which helped to shape the evolution of the brand, ensuring it was firmly rooted in its rich heritage.

The new brand logotype was redrawn from the 1930s pack design, the original classic white and blue box which the current teething powder packaging had evolved from.

The existing ‘blurry’ baby was redrawn to be happier, sharper and more inclusive, and flipped to be moving forwards, hinting at efficacy.

We introduced a new holding device to give the branding greater impact and shelf standout, and to help strengthen brand recognition and recall. The ‘squircle’ combines the strength and reliability of a square with the caring protective softness of a circle. The shape is unique in the category, and along with holding the logotype and baby, also includes their year of establishment to underscore A&P’s long history in soothing babies.

On the packaging, new single colour icons are used to help differentiate products and highlight medical device features and benefits. Tinted squircles further aid product navigation while adding a soothing protective softness. New product title intros add further warmth and emotional connection, something the consumer research found lacking in the existing packaging.

Although the evolved branding and packaging scored well above the existing brand in further rounds of consumer testing, unfortunately a decision was made to halt the process. One new product did make it through though, and Ashton & Parsons Soothing Nappy Spray was launched in 2025, utilising a design in which we combined the existing brand style with elements of our evolution, as shown below.