When venerable home services giant Terminix was approached to license retail products, the company thought it would be a great opportunity to expand its reach. However, without a clear-cut retail and licensing strategy, it soon found itself, well, bugged. Some products were off-brand, and some confused consumers. What’s more, there wasn’t a migration strategy to take retail customers into home service subscriptions, which was a lost opportunity. So, Terminix turned to us. First, we worked with focus groups to get to the heart of what Terminix stood for…and engaged those consumers to get a better understanding of Terminix’s brand positioning and promise. We took a close look at the licensed products—and found emotional, narrative and tonal disconnects with Terminix’s brand positioning. Then, we set about testing updated and more brand-centric packaging with consumers against an existing control of on-shelf products, in order to get the right mix of brand elements. We looked at color theory studies to determine the perfect blend of packaging colors to engage consumer and reinforce the Terminix brand on a subliminal level. We even tackled ways to get consumers at retail to participate in Terminix’s lead generation program for in-home services, tying the retail licensing model to the company’s primary objective of building its home services base. And, we learn a lot about pests—much more than we can ever forget.