One Mans Blog
Specialization is for Insects.
Posted on Sep 23, 2007 - 12:45am by John P. in Food, Must Haves, Sales Management
Every once in a while you come across a product whose packaging is so unique and compelling that you absolutely must try it out. Well, when I came across a box of Everybody’s Nuts pistachios at the local grocery store I knew I had to put them in my belly!
You know, pistachios are not exactly the kind of product people normally get emotional about, and that is what makes this story so compelling. Here you’ve got an abnormally boring food, yet someone has gone and made it deliciously desirable.
It definitely demonstrates how big of a role that creativity can play when it comes to selling your goods and services… or yourself!
The first thing to catch your eye is the unique packaging. Most pistachios come in clear bags, but these are in white boxes with a tapered top. They include eye-catching graphics, and have an awesome little pistachio mascot on them!
When you turn them over to look at the back of the box, they have a bunch of different stories printed on them. That’s right, what I’m telling you is that most of the time if you turn two boxes over they will have completely different labels, each with a clever or cute story. The packaging therefore reinforces the uniqueness of the product. (Make sure and click the following image so you can read the backs.)
Then, when you finally open them up you still end up with another little packaging surprise. A cute little cracker-jax style message inside.
All in all, I wish more companies would learn to make their products with the same level of quality, and the same level of packaging enthusiasm. In the meantime if you have access to Everybody’s Nuts I highly recommend you stop and pick some up. They are delicious!
By the way, Everybody’s Nuts is giving away a trip to Hawaii and the contest ends on September 30th, so head over and enter. No purchase necessary! Hmmm…. maybe I shouldn’t have told you that because it lowers my own odds of winning.
Oh, and if you work at Everyone’s Nuts, feel free to send me a case or two of your nuts after you figure out where all of the traffic to your site is coming from. 
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I definitely have an appreciation for companies that strive to be funny and smart at the same time. One that comes to mind is Snapple for their labels and even those fun facts that they include in the bottle cap “just because.” I like it when companies don’t always have to take themselves seriously.
In fact, now that I think of it, I just wrote something similar to that fact at Fun Error Messages. I didn’t intend on including a link when I started this comment, but it seemed relevant enough to do so.
Thanks for the post about this company, I’m gonna go check them out!
That is just nuts
I love pistachios, they are a lot of work though, I found a place in Copenhagen once where they sold shelled pistachios, I would grab a bag every time I passed - average lifespan of a pack of shelled pistachios is around 3 minutes… where the regular ones last about half an hour with all the work included.
Kim:)
That’s awesome - I love it when packaging has personality like that! It makes me feel like part of a community, you know?
My son, Shawn, and I love pistachios - add cool packaging from a company with a personality - even better!
Just not sure if SmallTown, AL will have them - I’ll be looking, though, that’s for sure!!
I am trying to think of a time that packaging actually sold me on a food product. Usually packaging is a negative like the plastic bag that is sealed so well that every part of the bag will rip before the seal area opens. If they can set themselves apart with cool packaging (and a great website), my hat is off to them.
Speaking of which Tom, where the hell do they get that industrial strength super-plastic they use on some of these bags now days? I’m 6′1″ and I can bench press at least my own body weight - but I can’t pull open some of these bags!
You either have to destroy them or cut them open with scissors or a knife!
John
Gotta love child proof snacks !!!!
Kim:)
I am OK with the strength of the plastic, I am not OK with the sealing process that is not controlled with the end user in mind. My background is in mechanical engineering and I am quite familiar with welding process including the process used to fuse plastics. The problem here is that the seam or weld is twice the thickness of the plastic sheet around it, it’s two layers thick. The process should be controlled so that there is surface fuse rather than heating it through to form one double thickness.
Shawn, and I love pistachios - add cool packaging from a company with a personality - even better!
Taste was good, but the product didn’t live up to it’s guarantee. It stated that if you find a pistacio that wasn’t open, return for a replacement. Well, that was all a hoax. I did just as the package, and internet stated to return unopened pistacio to the address listed, and to my surprise noone responded. So I called to follow up, I let two phone messages, a week apart. No return phone call. I guess this company only advertises that they will replace a package that has an unopened pistacio. However, they don’t live up to the guarantee. I’m guessing that it must have to go under a series of tests to determine that the pistacio that was returned was actually a pistacio that came from their plant, similiar to a DNA test done on humans.
They probably gambled on the fact that nobody would go through that much hassle to get a new bag of nuts
Kim:)