Our 5-year partnership with Boots continues to grow
Starting with structural and print innovations, it grew to include trend analysis and supporting concept design, through to design execution, artwork management and printing – the kind of end-to end project that our Total Package solution was developed for.
The 2020 challenge
After the 2019 advent calendar we worked on with No7 became the fastest-selling product on Boots’ website ever, we realised we’d have to raise the bar again to accomplish even more for Christmas 2020. Boots wanted to eliminate single use plastic entirely, and deliver a truly desirable range with fresh, contemporary design that maximised sustainability, down to being “under the tree ready” (meaning the consumer didn’t need to rewrap the products to gift them).
Our graphic designers, structural engineers and artworkers are a single, connected, and hugely creative team, so the innovation workflow was as seamless as the quality of design was brilliant. The addition of inhouse proofing and CAD sampling equipment, and the involvement of experienced print advisers enabled them to prototype rapidly and present ideas effectively. Our cloud-based file systems, powered the project to continue without disruption, despite unexpected mass remote working through much of 2020.
The results…speak for themselves
We’ve helped remove single use plastic across the full range of 35+ product lines; it’s free of acetate windows, plastic trays and fitments and plastic coatings, such as laminates. All substrates used are non-metallic, and all board is recyclable. We kept coverage of foil blocking to under 5% on any given item, to ensure we met national recycling guidelines.
But it wasn’t just about materials used. We followed our client’s policy of “right-sizing”, ensuring the gift packs were no larger than the products inside, and delivered a high value perception through great design and structural quality instead of volume. All packs were crafted so the retail packaging was removable, revealing a gifting-ready box with gift tag.
No photos please
An example of how we improved workflow was the replacement of costly and time-consuming product photography with 3D CGI product renders. Without the ability to view the product through the typical acetate window in the packaging, the quality of content visualisation became critically important. CGI enabled us to create pin-sharp, colour accurate product shots, that could be used on the printed packaging, as well as online and in promotional material in limitless arrangements and layouts – but with complete colour control accuracy across digital and physical media. Not only that, but product images could be created from artwork before the final manufactured product was available, thereby accelerated launch campaign development.
The benefits of 3D renders extend to brand consistency and efficiency also; carefully classifying each product type, its franchise colours, materials, and dimensions we created an accurate asset library of 120+ products, ready to reuse, update, rotate, adapt, group together or add to in future – without the need for further photoshoots, which as well as being costly and time-consuming, would have been logistically challenging through periods of lockdown.
Bringing it all together
We delivered the full range of services required as a single multi-disciplinary agency team, rather than a number of separate, disjointed providers working in silos. Working closely with the production as well as the brand team, we helped manage the entire development and execution process, including seamlessly managing colour approval and sign-off through lockdown. This resulted in a streamlined workflow that not only maximised speed and efficiency, but created more time and room for meaningful creative exploration and for perfecting design details.
