Package Design - June 2012 - 10

SNAPSHOTS

Home Sweet Home
Peanut Chews rebrand puts the focus back on its Philly roots.
ust Born Inc. (Bethlehem, PA) has brought back the Goldenberg’s family name and Peanuts Chews’ traditional chocolate-brown color to its candy packaging. The new packaging, designed by CAG Design Studios (Hackettstown, NJ), highlights the brand’s Philadelphia heritage, where Peanut Chews has been made since 1917. It also reverses a branding move made by Just Born in 2003, when the company bought Goldenberg Candy Company and its related brands. Back then, the company rolled out bright, new packaging with the aim of making a stronger impact on shelf that would eventually help expand distribution outside Peanut Chews’ core Mid-Atlantic market. Five years later, Just Born learned about the not-so-great effects of the earlier redesign when it launched a limiteddistribution bar in retro packaging. “When the folks found the Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews retro bar in Cracker Barrels and other locations, they acted as though they’d found a long-lost friend,” says Bob Zender, marketing manager for Peanut Chews at Just Born. “They’d write in to our company or call our customer-service line and thank us for bringing Goldenberg’s back. We tried to explain that Peanut Chews never left. It just had a new package design. Those calls made us stand up and take notice.” Three years after the retro bars debuted at Cracker Barrel, Just Born began the design project that resulted in the current packaging by starting with consumer research.
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“To no one’s surprise,” says Zender, “one of the main points of feedback was that consumers needed to have the Goldenberg’s name back on the package to be emotionally connected to the candy.” Just Born also learned that the bright-blue package was literally sending the wrong message. As Zender explains, “It communicated coconut or mint flavor to a lot of the consumers.” CAG BrandFirst account manager Tracy Kiker adds, “I think Just Born had found through the years that brown was one of those packaging characteristics that resonated with consumers, and that it needed to be brought back for the candy to be easily recognized on shelf.” The consumer testing also revealed that a return to the previous packaging wasn’t good enough: the packaging still needed to be relevant to a younger target market of 18- to 24-year-old men. As CAG BrandFirst Creative Director Amy Happ puts it, “Consumers wanted a modern, fresh logo type that doesn’t lose sight of its heritage.” So the design agency created a new Peanut Chews logo using a sans-serif type, outlined it in color, but kept the primary type white like the retro package. Another modern touch is a creative use of the barcode, which mimics the Philadelphia skyline. The new look can now be found on the entire Peanut Chews product line, which runs from 2- and 3.3-oz. wrapped bars to 100-count, labeled tubs.
Package Design - June 2012

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