That’s the challenge that faced Binney & Smith for its Crayola Color Wonder kit, an exclusive at Toys “R” Us.
“Normally, we package our products in overwraps with holes for pegboard display,” says Mark Clarizio of Binney & Smith. “But Toys ‘R’ Us wanted a package that could stand up on the store shelf by itself. And we wanted a package that would let shoppers see the product and understand how it worked.”
The Color Wonder line is an innovation in coloring products. It is a “mess-free” product that keeps smudges of color from walls, furniture, and all the places that kids have a tendency to put them. It does that with a special marker and paper combination—only when the two interact do the colors appear.
The activity kit not only features the introduced Color Wonder markets, it introduces a new component to the product line—a mess-free finger paint. It works much like the markers. Kids swab their fingers in the paint and then draw across special paper which lets the colors appear. If they wipe the “paint” on other surfaces, it creates no color and no mess.
“We needed to highlight this feature by showing it in the package,” Clarizio offers. Consumers needed to see all the components along with a description of how they worked to communicate the advantages of the new products.
Packaging Technique: The answer was a mock clamshell that holds a box of six markers and a palette of six finger paints along with two booklets of the special paper. Thermoformed from PVC by Alloyd Co., the mock clamshell’s design positions each of the components in place, showing both product and “sell” copy to explain the product’s benefits.
Important to the mock clamshell’s design are “feet” molded into the bottom of the thermoformed material. They provide enough stability to allow the package to stand up on the shelf, criteria specifically required by Toys ‘R’ Us.
A backing card, printed by Strine Printing, is four-color on the side that shows through the front, adding to the shelf impact. The back side, printed in black, includes detailed instruction on how the product works, an important element with a newer product.
The mock clamshells are filled and sealed by Case-Mason Filling, Inc., using an Alloyd sealing unit.
See the story that goes with this sidebar: ‘Best-Practice’ Techniques Deliver Shelf Impact
