When Hillsboro, KS-based Golden Heritage Foods LLC heard the buzz about DreamWorks Animation's feature film, Bee Movie, it jumped at the chance to create a bee-themed promotional package for its honey.
The movie, a comedy featuring the voice of Jerry Seinfeld, follows the quest of animated bee Barry B. Benson as he ventures outside the hive.
Golden Heritage's re-creation of Barry takes the form of a 2-oz contoured honey bottle bearing Barry's likeness on a colorful shrink-sleeve label. The petite bottle is a departure for Golden Heritage, whose typical retail bottle sizes range from 8 to 40 oz, along with even larger-sized institutional packaging.
CEO Dwight Stoller describes the inspiration for the 2-oz Barry's Busy Bee Pure Honey package this way: "Well, first of all, Bees are rather small characters. We thought that this would help personify Barry Bee. We thought it added to its cuteness and that children would be more attracted to it. We also saw it as creating potential for a lower-cost item to be used somewhat as a trial size, which fit with our objective to increase honey consumption by more users, especially young ones."
Suggested retail price is 99 cents.
The shaped polypropylene squeeze bottle stands 3.5 inches high and is supplied by Berlin Packaging. Golden Heritage created its own label graphics using style guides from DreamWorks Animation. The label is constructed of PETG shrink film and flexo-printed in four process colors plus four spot colors. A white, screw-on, flip-top cap from Seaquist Closures completes the bottle.
"One notable challenge was getting the required information and graphics on a very small label," Stoller says.
The 2-oz bottle is available across the country at mass merchandisers and displayed in a number of formats to offer multiple merchandising options.
"We like to see this placed somewhere other than the honey section because this product is primarily an impulse purchase," adds Marketing Manager Ben Gregory. "When people see this product in front of them, they're immediately attracted to it, so we like to put it in a high-visibility area. Another reason for placing it somewhere else in the store is the potential to automatically connect it with other usage. We see it do well at checkout, in produce, and in breads and bakery."
By Anne Marie Mohan, Packaging World
