Even commodities can benefit from the dose of Pow!
Case in point is the photocopy paper from a company called Hemlock. Now I can't think of anything more dull than the slabs of paper we see piled up in our office supply closets (or hidden in our briefcases as we slip a package or two home for the kids. But I digress again...), but Hemlock's is a little different: it's 100% post-consumer waste recycled.
So what? Well, that's the attitude they wanted to counter, so they (along with environmentally responsible online retailer Frogfile) approached a "socially conscious" Vancouver ad agency called Change with the mandate to:
"...package their copy paper (in a way) that highlighted the environmentally friendly features of the product, and stood out."
The end result was paper packaging that not just looked cool when stacked up on a shelf, but had a practical side as well. The outer wrapping could be folded, origami-style into a cute lil' tree, which, as Change puts it, "can be put on a desk as a constant reminder of trees being saved." You can see both in the blue box at right.
Compare this to the standard stuff we pick up, Zombie-like with a big yawn at Office Depot, and you see that a little Surprise, and a lot of soul, goes a long way.
Think your product and/or service can be Pow!ed?
Then you're not trying hard enough.
(And to top things off, Change has one of the smartest, most ingenious logos I've seen in ages. Their message gets across in six letters, albeit with a bit of a twist. Check it out here.)
