Package Design - November 2012 - 26

Packaging a Talent Agency
Sustainability, quality and ﬂavor underscore clever promotion.
By Steve Werblow

ere’s a daunting challenge: Walk into a room full of creative professionals—including the top designers in the packaging industry and the people who hire them—and make a splash. While you’re at it, make sure the gift you hand them tells the story of your company and demonstrates your commitment to quality and sustainability. You have eight seconds to make a great impression. Go. Karl Heine, with his wife and partner, kHyal, mastered that challenge at the most recent How Design Live, handing out tins of “Creative Placemints” in a refreshing bid to celebrate 25 years in business and promote his talent placement agency Creativeplacement. The promotion—a run of 1,000 palm-size boxes—drew recipients into a world of touch, smell and taste. Every tin sports a clever phrase by kHyal, and the promise of long-lasting, refreshing

talent to the vow to provide as many servings as needed to prospective clients, was a witty re ection on the company. Most important, every element of the project, from the recycled tin boxes to the candy inside, re ected Heine and kHyal’s commitment to sustainability.

Accurate representation
The Creativeplacement team has a long and deep commitment to sustainability. kHyal, who owns a boutique marketing and design communication rm called Zz Agency, recently completed a program in sustainability at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. That commitment is re ected in all aspects of the Creative Placemints promotion. “Everything we did had some sort of recycled or sustainable component,” says Heine. That complicated the process and increased the price tag, he admits, but allowed the giveaway to more accurately represent the company. “I wasn’t a believer in, ‘let’s do this for the cheapest price possible and let’s throw in some candy,’” Heine notes. All components, right down to the organic iced mango mint candies from Hillside Candy in New Jersey, were made in the U.S. Beyond sustainability, Creative Placemints had to exude quality and attention to detail from top to bottom. “If things weren’t produced to a certain level of speci city, it wouldn’t work as a concept,” Heine says.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT
Gerard Huerta Design Inc., www.gerardhuerta.com Container & Packaging Supply, www.containerandpackaging.com Green Earth Enterprise, www.earthenterprise.com Hewlett-Packard, www.hp.com Logotech Inc., www.logotech-inc.com Mohawk, www.mohawkconnects.com Precision Label Corp., www.precisionlabelcorp.com TerraSkin, www.terraskin.com

NOVEMBER 2012

Package Design - November 2012

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