Generating and testing pack structures for a new indulgent range

The question

A food company had defined the products for a new indulgent range, made to be enjoyed at home, but not the pack they would come in.

The pack would do much to decide whether shoppers saw the treats as an everyday pleasure or something saved for special occasions. The team had to choose which structures to take into development, from ideas that did not yet exist, with the range’s priority buyers firmly in mind.

Our approach

The client’s own teams generated the structures with us in one ideation workshop, setting today’s technical limits aside to imagine what packaging could do in the years ahead.

They worked from the eating occasions the treats were made for, with a gallery of packaging from other categories and the evidence on the people the range was for on the walls, to keep the ideas grounded.

The strongest ideas went straight into rapid online qualitative testing with the range’s priority buyers, and each pack was read for how special it felt beside how often people would serve or buy it.

What the team came away with

Innovation leadership had rendered pack designs to choose between, each with elevations and guidance for development.

Alongside them came a description of the ground the strongest designs shared, in structure, function, materials and visual cues. The team had a way to judge any future structure against it, whoever drew it.

The work closed with the steps that remained before a design could be final, from structural soundness to the balance between a premium feel and what could realistically be made.