Digging Out New Markets for a Seedling Garden Product
EarthApples was a brand new seed potato company.
We’d worked with the business owners before in creating the successful Solanum International website for their potato product development business and had learned a few things about the industry. But EarthApples was a new business venture that would market and sell to a much broader audience: consumers online and in retail stores everywhere. The idea was to make a very wide range of beautiful, non-GMO varieties widely available—and grow a new generation of potato growers including first-timers without gardens.
Packaging for Retail & Online Success
Resetting Perceptions for Market Enlargement
Impressive & Dynamic Online Store
The Positioning: Smart & Healthy Potatoes Anyone Can Grow—Anywhere
Our job in taking EarthApples to market was to break down barriers and enlarge the addressable audience. We found that most consumers believed that potatoes were not terribly nutritious, were difficult to grow and required a large garden. But none of these things were true. In reality, potatoes are a superfood, grown by many Europeans in pots — on balconies and doorsteps. With North American lifestyles changing and more people living in apartments and condos, there was no reason the same couldn’t apply here.
Changing perceptions expanded the market to millions of new consumers and enabled EarthApples to sell as a premium product, at a higher price than incumbent products displayed immediately next to it on retail shelves!
A Logo Buyers Would Dig
Our product logo design team came up with a bumper crop of great ideas, rendered with paints, and hand-drawn lettering using bright and earthy colour palettes. We pruned these down to four options, all of which the client loved. In the end, the winner was a product logo that gave a literal depiction of the product in action, along with active, playful lettering. The potato shapes would go on to be a graphic element used in almost all branded materials.
We designed a box that would stand out on any shelf, whether in garden centers or home improvement stores.
Our unique packaging design uses potato shapes as die-cut holes for ventilation — and to allow a peek at the product inside. The product would enter the market with a dozen varieties, each with its own colour scheme. Over the years, we’ve designed new boxes for additional varieties, from potatoes that have never been seen in the market to perennial favorites.
Attracting, Educating … and Selling
The client’s vision was to create a platform where people could learn all about potatoes, from the tubers’ fascinating origins in South America to gardening tips and gourmet cooking ideas. The online store would sell EarthApples (no simple task with a highly seasonal and perishable living product), expanding to a line of planting and gardening accessories. The fully custom website uses some exciting technical implementations, and is equally beautiful across all devices.
Earth Apples
Collateral & Support to Scale
Graphos Product has designed a full suite of marketing materials for EarthApples, including print and web ads, tradeshow display units and brochures.
In its first season, EarthApples garnered a lot of orders and attention, making the brand an immediate success in garden centers and home renovation stores. The second season brought a flood of online orders and retail re-orders while plowing the way for an expanded market. Try them yourself and discover how easy it is to grow healthful, delicious potatoes at home — whether you’re an experienced gardener or seldom get your hands dirty!
