Crock-Pot, the famous kitchen brand whose name has become cultural shorthand for the slow cooker, will drop its hyphen and revamp its packaging next month, anchoring a total brand refresh ahead of the product’s 50th anniversary in 2021.

Hence stylized as Crockpot, the brand’s new look is set to be fully implemented by October when the Newell Brands-owned appliance line launches its annual “Crocktober” campaign, a month-long awareness bid usually marked by product giveaways and recipe sharing.

“We don’t want to be nostalgic; we want to be as relevant as ever for the next 50 years,” says Tim Anderson, the director of marketing at Newell Brands, which also has Rubbermaid, Sharpie and Elmer’s glue in its portfolio. 

“Relying on the past is really limiting to our future,” he says, adding that Crockpot is sometimes thought of as an old-school brand; something a consumer’s mother or grandmother might have used in their kitchen back in the day. Now, it will take a more focused aim at younger demographics.

Crockpot’s brand refresh is the result of significant market research across a full spectrum of consumer touchpoints.

In deciding to drop the longstanding hyphen in its name, for example, Crockpot examined variations in the ways users often spell its name online. Now written as one word, Anderson hopes a hyphenless Crockpot will shift attention from the physical appliance to the brand itself.

Its updated packaging, meanwhile, maintains a yellow color scheme to which the brand has loosely adhered since its inception in the early 1970s. But despite its reputation as a heritage product, Anderson wants to make clear that the modernity and long-term viability of Crockpot is above all else. In the course of redesigning its look, “There was nothing that we held sacred.”

One new component of Crockpot's usual autumn ramp-up is a partnership with Feeding America, which will see the brand join forces with the nonprofit to provide up to 250,000 meals to the hungry in September, which is also Hunger Action Month.