Agency: Backbone Branding
Brand Strategist: Stepan Avanesyan
Creative Director: Stepan Azaryan
Photos: Backbone Branding& Suren Manvelyan
Location: Armenia
Project Type: Produced
Client: Spyka LLC
Product Launch Location: Russia
Packaging Contents: Blue cheese
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Foil, Foodboard, Paper
Printing Process: Flexopgraphy

BRIEF
This project started with one of the largest companies in the market approaching us to create a brand of blue cheese for entering the Russian cheese market. The main challenge was understanding the Russian market’s approach towards this kind of cheese and coming up with a packaging design that would fit into the customers’ mentality and be well-perceived.

SOLUTION
After analyzing the particularities of consumption in the Russian market, we concluded that blue cheese has a specific consumption pattern due to its unique taste. It is mainly used during memorable occasions as a special treat. Consequently, it aspires to become a high-class product with premium packaging.

Due to its exceptional and delectable taste, it is always in the center of the table during memorable occasions, as if it gathers people and events around it. We emphasized this with straight lines on the packaging, all of which stretch towards the center, communicating the attractive feature of the cheese’s taste. The electric blue color of the packaging is a nod to the blue cheese, and the other colors on it, brown and orange, are reminiscent of the goods that are commonly served with blue cheese, such as grapes, nuts, pears, figs, dried fruits, etc.

We chose this name to highlight the unique taste that you would gladly enjoy all by yourself. In Russian, “Sambiel” sounds like “Sam bi el,” meaning – “It is so delicious, that I would eat it myself with pleasure.”

There are two packaging designs for this cheese: wheel of cheese and a triangular cardboard prism packaging with a centrifugal composition, specially created for selling this cheese per piece. The base for this concept is, again, the visualization of the force of taste’s attraction during the celebrations, where all cheese triangles strain towards the center.

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