Spotlight: Food & Beverage

Carson & Company Helps Steer Snak King Brand into New Realm of Quality and Flair

After the success of the vibrant Snak King metallized popcorn bags, the same techniques were executed on the Puffs line of snacks.

Just calling yourself the "King of Snacks" doesn't necessarily guarantee a permanent place on the apex of the proverbial hill of the snack-food category. Though Snak King had a 24-year reputation as a premier manufacturer of great-tasting snacks, the packages did not necessarily still reflect that quality.

Snak King president Barry Levin and v.p. of marketing Joe Papari called upon Carson & Company of Santa Ana, CA, for the creative assignment to bring new luster to the brand. At the same time, they figured, they might as well make improvements to the ingredients to further propel the brand forward.

George Carson, founder of Carson & Company, had worked with the Snak King before to introduce El Sabroso's new line of Salsidas, Quesachips, and Guacachips (the original). "We understood what Barry and Joe wanted the package to convey," says Carson. "One of the objectives was the Snak King logo. It has to have a consistent look in a design that would further enhance the upscale image for the company."

The primary objective and goal was to capture the attention of consumers who are seeking good tasting, quality snacks, and Carson set to work updating the popcorn packages. The two flavors, Cheese and Butter, went through a complete re-design and included changing the packaging material to a metallized film for longer shelf life and freshness.

A clean, simple design placed emphasis on the word "Popcorn," while the flavor names took advantage of the metallized film to give an upscale appearance and maximize the use of color photography and bold graphic colors. "It gave us a great surface to print photo-realistic images," Carson explains. The package conveys what the product is supposed to be taste-wise, texture-wise, and freshness-wise, much better having a window, says Carson.

Carson's experience with these metallized films proved invaluable. "If you don't put an undercoat of white, certain colors have a shiny glow to them." Yellow becomes gold, and deep greens achieve a shimmery metallic effect. The light in the supermarket can reveal multiple variations of imagery on the printing surface. The secret is to let the characteristics of the inks come through, as the film almost acts like a mirror at times.

As with the popcorn, many of the Puffs snack items were re-formulated to meet today's sophisticated consumers' tastes. Package colors were carefully chosen to enhance the high resolution product photos so that they would jump out from the package. A clean gradient color panel surrounded the Snak King logo, which was consistent for all three flavors.

Again, metallized packaging film provided the surface quality desired to capture the gradient colors and to retain the detail on the photos. Carson explains that, as metallized film drops in price, high volume production can make the investment worthwhile. In today's competitive shelf environment, common consumer goods need that kind of impact to stand out, because, Carson says, "People buy by eye appeal."