Applications: Tiptop Design
Draw your baths! Crayola’s new personal care package has hit shelves.
By Jennifer Kwok, Managing EditorIn June, Crayola’s Squeeze & Squirt foaming hand and body soap launched in an unusually shaped bottle. Brought from concept to production in just five months, the package was developed by Schroeder & Tremayne, the U.S. licensee of the Crayola brand in the children’s personal care category, and Studio One Eleven, the design agency of package distributor Berlin Packaging (Chicago).
In September 2004, Schroeder & Tremayne approached Studio One Eleven to come up with a new packaging solution for the brand’s bath and body line. In 2003, under Schroeder & Tremayne, the Crayola brand launched its first collection of bath and body packages shaped like wavy crayons and crayon tips. For the foaming hand and body soap package, “we were looking for a better translation of the Crayola equities in this category,” says Carla Schaeffer, brand manager for Schroeder & Tremayne. “We wanted something that would make cleaning not only more interactive for kids, but also more enticing.”
Studio One Eleven insisted on doing its research first. It started by asking questions. “Rather than just focusing on finding a material and closure, we asked them about their resources as a licensee,” says Scott Jost, director of Studio One Eleven. “We need to arm ourselves with the context of the brand’s history. If there’s information we think would be useful and that could enhance the end result, we’re not shy about asking. In this case, it really paid off.”
Among other things, the Studio One Eleven team studied Crayola’s licensee manual. “In the back of the manual, we saw a little character, a personified crayon named Tip,” says Jost. “The character was used to give thumbs-up and thumbs-down signs next to tips on what you could and couldn’t do with the brand. We thought that this little guy was the perfect personification of what the Crayola brand was about—it was friendly and playful. So we thought, ‘What if we could turn this character into a personified crayon that kids could actually interact with?’”
The result is a 6-oz cylindrical PET bottle, molded with Tip’s arms and feet and wrapped in a shrink sleeve printed with Tip’s face. Studio One Eleven’s design met with enthusiastic approval from Schroeder & Tremayne. “This is the first time Tip’s been used in an interactive way like this. It hit on every front—we were thrilled,” says Schaeffer.
As part of its turnkey service, Studio One Eleven had the bottle custom molded by Berlin Packaging’s suppliers in China. The clear PVC shrink sleeve was outsourced from China as well. “They could do everything but the filling, so having them handle the production as well made a lot of sense for us,” says Schaeffer. “We would never trade expertise for convenience, and I think they delivered both.”
The unusual bottle shape made molding a challenge. “The unusual shape, the distribution of the plastic, and details like Tip’s individual fingers and the shoelaces on the shoes are all very difficult things to do,” says Jost.
The EcoFoam Squeeze Foamer is by Emsar Inc. (Stratford, CT). The foamer dispenses the liquid product as foam when customers squeeze the bottle. When asked why Studio One Eleven chose a squeeze foamer versus a standard foam pump, Jost replies: “It takes the package to another level by letting the child hold the bottle like a crayon, squeeze the product out with one hand, and draw with the foam.”
On the final result, Schaeffer says, “We’ve gotten extremely positive feedback. An important objective was hitting a cost target that let us be more competitive with other children’s soaps on the market. We just weren’t able to get there with our existing packaging. We’re looking to expand the Tip family in 2006, and we’re working with Studio One Eleven on the next generation of Tip.”