It’s a simple rule of marketing: The more complex your product or service, the more unforgettable your marketing materials need to be. And if that means sending a prospective client a dog food bowl to cement your company’s name firmly in their minds, at least you know they’re not likely to forget you anytime soon. Especially if you package it in sharp and vibrant packaging that begs to be kept.
Sparkhound provides a multitude of business solutions, from digital and IT strategies to project management, and knows they can help many companies if they can just get their foot (or paw) in the door. After retooling their client engagement model and service groupings, they asked longtime design partners TILT to redesign their already-successful sales kit to reflect those changes.
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Furthering the fun and quirky image they had already developed for Sparkhound, TILT partnered with Vulcan Information Packaging to create a “smaller, sleeker version” of that sales kit. The result is a snazzy box full of surprises.
Printed CMYK offset with a spot UV varnish, and wrapped around chipboard in the turned-edge fashion common for producing this type of packaging, the soft touch-laminated box shows off colors so vibrant they seem to pop right off the surface. On either side are colorful icons depicting various services offered by Sparkhound.
“Bark up a better tree,” the lid advises; lifting it unveils the kit’s first surprise: a dark green sleeve with the words “Plan. Build. Run” laser cut to show off what seems to be a dynamic green gradient beneath that matches the colors on the lid. (The lid itself is held closed with a handy magnetic closure.)
Removing the sleeve from the box reveals a stainless steel dog bowl tucked neatly inside a green poly die-cut tray insert; a CMYK-printed adhesive label with the words “Need More?” and the Sparkhound URL is affixed to the inside of the bowl.
But wait, what about that sleeve? Going back for a closer look reveals that the green peeking through the die cut words is actually the cover of a perfect-bound, CMYK printed booklet extolling the virtues of Sparkhound’s offerings. This keen attention to detail, combined with the stylish look of the packaging itself, is doubtless as reassuring to those looking for IT solutions as the sound of kibble hitting a stainless steel bowl is to hounds everywhere. Woof!
Sabine Lenz is the founder of PaperSpecs.com, the first online paper database and community specifically designed for paper specifiers.
Growing up in Germany, Sabine started her design career in Frankfurt, before moving to Australia and then the United States. She has worked on design projects ranging from corporate identities to major road shows and product launches. From start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, her list of clients included Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Deutsche Bank, IBM and KPMG.
Seeing designers struggle worldwide to stay current with new papers and paper trends inspired Sabine to create PaperSpecs, an independent and comprehensive Web-based paper database and weekly e-newsletter. She is also a speaker on paper issues and the paper industry. Some refer to her lovingly as the "paper queen" who combines her passion for this wonderful substrate called paper with a hands-on approach to sharing her knowledge.