We are very excited to once again be working with Sterling International, Inc., the makers of RESCUE!® pest control products, on the new packaging for their decorative OrnamenTrap® Fly and Yellowjacket Traps. This premiere Spokane company has been making safe, chemical-free insect traps since 1982, and their products are carried by major retailers nationwide.
Alyssa Ando, Brand Manager of Sterling International, Inc., came by Sonderen for a press check on our KBA Rapida 145: the inaugural press check on our newest machine.
OrnamenTrap® has been on the market since July 2014, but is undergoing a package redesign that will roll out later this month. They wanted to show a photo of the trap in-use on the front of the package, so more real estate was needed.
“We don’t generally put things in boxes because it hides the product,” explained Alyssa. “If you’ve noticed on store shelves, our Reusable Yellowjacket Trap… you see the actual neon yellow trap on the shelf, it’s open for the consumer to touch and feel the quality before purchasing it. So that was hard for us at first, we didn’t really want to box the OrnamenTrap®. Sonderen was great working with us, cutting just the right amount of window to show off the product, yet providing enough space to print a full size a photo of the trap in-use.”
Faith Merryman, V.P. of Sales and Marketing at Sigmadog, LLC, attended the press check too, representing the graphic design firm. “Sonderen has it down; they can do the dies and the layouts, they get us the box design and then we can run with it. It’s much better for [Sterling] to have had a box and be able to put the product in there and decide, ‘yeah, we like this. Now, here, make it look pretty.’ If we were just putting it in a box where you couldn’t see the product, that would be a completely different game, but because they want to see the product, it’s so important to have a packaging company like Sonderen to be able to do that for you.”
“We knew we needed it in some sort of box and that we wanted a window,” said Alyssa. “We played with the window size, and how much space to keep at the bottom. It was a balance: showing the product, but keeping enough box space to fit the copy and photos.”
The last project that we worked with Sterling International, Inc. on was their VisiLure® TrapStik® packaging, which won an Excellence Award from the Paperboard Packaging Council. The hexagonal sleeve designed with reverse cut tabs is an innovative packaging solution to a tricky product.
“That was a new trap for us, too,” Alyssa reminisces. “Rather than being pheromone-based, it is made up of glue panels and attracts the insects visually with colors and patterns. We’ve never produced a package or product like it. Encasing a sticky glue trap for shipment and for store shelves: you have to hide it. But how do you do it without hiding all of it? Sonderen worked with us on that and came up with a design where we could wrap a sleeve around it and still see the top and bottom of the product.”
“I enjoy working with Sonderen, we have a good relationship,” says Alyssa. When asked if they’re considering boxing more of their products, she replied, “We are looking at using a similar window box design for another new product that isn’t on the market yet.”