Rethinking Band-Aids ?

Johnson & Johnson has been making Band-Aids since 1921. In looking for new opportunities for the brand, a simple one emerged. Most wounds - burns, cuts and scrapes - occur on the fingers. This means that a person self-administering a Band-Aid needs to apply it using one hand - the non-injured one. Through some quick studies it became apparent to me that a problem with applying Band-Aids is that the absorbent pad is positioned in the middle of the strip. By simply moving the pad to one end it becomes much easier to apply. The result was the Finger Wrap bandage.

Many other design opportunities for the Band-Aid brand were uncovered during this project. But this idea was so easy to implement. No new tooling and no new technology, only a simple modification. It's an example of how oftentimes opportunities for new ideas exist in products we have been living with for a long time.

Dan Formosa, January 15 2009