Zenith Fasteners & General Hardware Packaging
Category: Hardware Branding and Packaging Design
Retail packaging for extensive hardware ranges requires both strong shelf presence and a user-friendly experience, particularly for fasteners, where customers need to find the exact screw quickly. Zenith partnered with Mela Creative to rethink packaging across its growing product portfolio, ensuring both brand impact and consumer ease of use.
Challenge: Breaking Industry Norms and Simplifying Selection
Prior to 2006, fastener packaging relied on white labels on blue boxes, which blended together on shelves and made product selection confusing. The challenge was to create a system that stood out visually while guiding customers to the right product, setting a new standard for the industry.
Solution: Colour-Coded, User-Friendly Packaging Across Multiple Categories
We introduced colour-coded boxes for each screw type: green for timber, red for metal, etc. This dramatically increased retail sales and influenced hardware packaging standards for over 15 years. Building on this success, we extended the approach to other hardware categories, including rigging, wheels, hooks, and hinges, designing packaging that highlights new finishes, innovative functionalities, and clear instructions. Working closely with the marketing team, we also supported product launches with naming, brand identity, magazine advertising, POS, and packaging rollouts, ensuring Zenith maintained its position as a category leader and appealed to the growing DIY market.
Colour-coded packaging transformed Zenith’s fasteners aisle, making product selection effortless and driving a massive increase in retail sales.
From fasteners to hinges and wheels, user-friendly, visually striking packaging has cemented Zenith as a hardware category leader.
ITW Proline has worked with Mela for more than 20 years on many projects from packaging to branding and print creative. As packaging experts, Mela have been instrumental in helping us develop innovative concepts that really set our brands apart in the market. Mela provide us with fresh, out of the box thinking and go above and beyond with their flexibility and responsiveness. I consider Mela to be an extension of our marketing team that really makes a difference to our business.”
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