Direct Mail Product Launch Packaging

My Role: Concept; messaging; budgeting; creative direction; resource management.

Notes: This was one of the most unique pieces I've worked on, and also one of the most expensive. It's not quite the size of an actual tennis racquet, but it's very close. The tennis racquet theme was inspired by the active lifestyle messaging of the product campaign.

This package is basically two custom-built trays (top and bottom) that interlock to secure the contents. The design consists of 4-color graphics printed on vinyl, adhered to heavy duty cardboard, and then attached to two custom built plastic trays. The trays contain a series of recessed areas to hold the aforementioned contents. Slots for fingers were incorporated for ease of removing items.

Contents include order form, software, measuring tool, brochures, product dummy, and technical information.

The completed package was shipped inside of a corrugated box. The box was simply a custom built piece of cardboard with with two large flaps to wrap the racquet and two short flaps to seal the ends. The finished box was flat and rectangular.

This was a rare instance where we were given the go ahead to create the project with a fairly large budget. In order to keep to very tight deadlines we needed every bit of that budget to make this happen. This is obviously a very costly package, particularly with the quantities and timelines we were working with -- under 10K units in about six weeks.

The creative aspect of this piece was in no way lost on our customers. We received an incredible amount of calls commenting on the mailing. Most were to say what a great idea they thought it was, but a few more environmentally conscious customers didn't like it and felt that it was wasteful. The bottom line is that the product launch was clearly noted by our customers. Even the few who didn't like the package still purchased product.