SAHALE PACKAGING
David Lemley, the head of brand strategy agency Retail Voodoo, hired us to help create a new look for Sahale Snacks.
Sahale was ready to expand its market. David Lemley and his team had some great ideas. Based on these, we did a test shoot of several strong visual concepts. The results were clear. Artfully styled, small clusters on eye-catching color was the way to go. The beauty of these packaging images is in their simplicity. However, it quickly became apparent that creating that simplicity was anything but simple. It was a huge challenge to work at such a tiny scale. Tweezers, museum wax, and some very steady hands were what our stylist needed to tackle this project. What looks like just a pretty pile of nuts took hours to compose and refine. Each small adjustment was akin to removing the wish bone in a high-stakes game of Operation.
Once we had come to a harmonious arrangement of ingredients, the next challenge was to capture the composition in crisp clarity and detail. In addition to packaging, Sahale wanted to print the images very large and in high resolution. The tiny clusters, which in reality are only a couple of inches tall, were to be printed several feet high. To achieve this we used an ultra-high res digital camera and focus-stacking techniques. A single final image is actually 15-20 individual captures all stacked together to create a highly detailed final photograph.
The packaging rebrand was a huge success. Sahale went from losing retail shelf space in an increasingly competitive market, to triple-digit growth in the first year. It quickly became the bestselling brand of snack nuts in North America. In 2014 it was purchased by the J.M. Smucker Company for a hefty sum.