There’s an argument to be made that there is no piece of packaging more joyful than that of a bag of marshmallows.
You almost always know what you’re getting inside, and it feels like a cozy, fluffy pillow made of, well, marshmallows. Just the sight of them evokes the sticky-sweet nostalgia of long-gone summers spent huddled around the campfire, complete with that survivalist-light mission to find sticks long and thin enough in the surrounding nearby woods that will serve as a vehicle to roasted perfection.
Plus, they’re fun, dammit. Who doesn’t like marshmallows?
Lucky for us, Jones Knowles Ritchie’s (JKR) latest redesign for Jet-Puffed marshmallows leans into the playful nature of the brand. And it’s all because of the “Puff Pals.” And no, that’s not a reference to the dudes you skipped fifth period with in high school, we’re trying to keep this in the bucket of innocent, G-related hijinks, OK?
The Puff Pals came about in the initial phases of JKR’s redesign, as their designers started drawing smiley faces on marshmallows because that’s good clean fun. “We’d leave the office for the night and imagine them coming to life after hours, bopping around the studio and getting into all kinds of mischief,” said JB Hartford, creative director at JKR. Those drawings inspired the rest of the branding, an uncomplicated bit of tomfoolery that feels more in line with Adventure Time or Netflix’s True and the Rainbow Kingdom.
The Puff Pals helped inspire the delightfully uncomplicated brand world of Jet-Puffed, where the complexities of life manage to disappear for a moment while you bliss out on a marshmallow. On the packaging, the rainbow now unfurls to the bottom of the bag, removing much of the copy and letting the Puff Pals become near-feature stars. Additionally, they changed the wordmark, removing the black and blue outline from “Jet-Puffed,” making it feel more pillowy and soft.
But they also wanted to broaden the Jet-Puffed universe, so that the new assets could live beyond the grocery store, creating numerous videos of marshmallows playfully sliding down rainbows or bouncing around rainbow rings of a Marsh-Saturn.
“From the beginning, we knew that the JET-PUFFED brand world should extend beyond just packaging,” said Hartford. “Simple, sweet, euphoric fluffiness practically begs to be shared. The vibrant colors and witty tone of voice, along with the brand’s characters, provide a playful, energetic toolkit for expressing the brand’s personality: delightfully uncomplicated, upbeat, and quirky.”
It’s tough to fall short when you’re working on this kind of project, because the marshmallow always sells itself, even just the idea of it. But Jet-Puffed likely knew that their packaging and branding situation was getting a little tired, and JKR’s vibrant redesign hits all the correct notes for that marshmallowy goodness.
