Creative Company Designs Tasty New Packaging for McTavish Shortbread

Creative Company has redesigned the packaging for McTavish Shortbread of Portland, Ore. As a result, McTavish Shortbread has seen a dramatic increase in sales.

McTavish Shortbread produces handmade shortbread cookies in various flavors, sizes and shapes for sale in grocery stores, cafes and gift shops across the country. Creative Company worked with Denise Pratt, president of McTavish, to develop labels for nine flavors of shortbread cookies, as well as a holiday label for gift packaging. The new labels, which are applied to clear, single-sized cellophane bags, were designed to appeal to buyers' taste buds and to encourage impulse buys at point of sale.

The new labels feature appealing images of each cookie's distinctive flavor profile-chocolate chips for one, cinnamon sticks for another, freshly cracked hazelnuts for a third-to indicate that the cookies are "handmade from scratch," as is also stated on the labels. Each label bears a brief description that focuses on the ingredients in that cookie. For example, the description on the Chocolate Espresso Shortbread label reads: "Savor the deep, rich flavors of real espresso beans blended with dark cocoa."

To further encourage sales, the labels were given a custom shape that is small enough to show off the cookies inside of each bag. The labels are easy to apply and less expensive to produce than the previous packaging, which featured a card-stock overlay that was stapled to the cellophane bag. Reducing the amount of packaging materials has also made the new package design more environmentally friendly.

"It was important for us to reposition our product to focus on the handmade quality and excellent ingredients we use," said Pratt. "We also needed to showcase the many different flavors we offer in a more appealing way."

The new packaging has been well received by McTavish customers. "Our sales have increased substantially now that our packaging more closely matches the taste of our delicious cookies," said Pratt. One customer in particular, a grocery store chain, was so impressed with the new packaging that it placed an order in November that more than doubled its orders for the whole year.

"Working with Creative Company on this project was a joy," said Pratt. "They were always very available to me to discuss the project and helped to keep me focused on a successful end result."

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