Ernest Packaging Solutions

Practice

Employee experience

Industry

Industrial

Services

Campaign strategy and planning
Internal brand launch plan
Brand strategy
Internal brand launch campaign
Leadership training
Media buying and stewardship
Brand campaign management
Campaign asset production
Brand messaging
Visual identity
Brand activation

Ernest is a 77-year-old family-owned packaging solutions company. Dedicated to cost-effective, innovative approaches, they specialize in industrial supply, production, and packaging. Each of their 14 coast-to-coast regional divisions are committed to working side-by-side with their clients to transform challenges into possibilities.

Since their 2008 rebrand with Liquid, Ernest had experienced massive success and expansion. In the midst of this growth, Ernest had become more solutions-driven. While they still offer commodities like boxes and tape, today they function more like consultants to solve business challenges, bring products to market, and boost bottom line. The packaging solutions brand had served them well for over 10 years, but they were beyond the “packaging” category.

The stage was set for a brand refresh—a reimagining of Ernest’s identity in alignment with its new aspirations. How could we keep a 77-year-old company feeling fresh while maintaining its legacy?

We saw Ernest consistently investing time, effort, and resources toward their relationships with clients and understanding their clients’ plans for growth. Their operational goals involved how to help clients become better—whether or not it involved packaging. This was our “aha” moment: the new brand would zoom in on Ernest’s unique commitment to fostering relationships and their positive impact on clients’ success.

Our research showed that their brand believers—we call them the Pioneers of Packaging—were change agents in the manufacturing industry looking for a packaging partner to help them think outside the box to solve business challenges.

The brand platform we developed highlights Ernest’s ability to simultaneously radiate expertise and approachability, their excitement about making an impact, and the light-hearted quirkiness of the Ernest culture.

We decided to shorten the company’s name from Ernest Packaging Solutions to just “Ernest” to encompass their broad business solutions focus beyond packaging, as well as to honor the legacy of Ernest Wilson, a co-founder. Although they’ve shortened their name, they still rally around challenging industry conventions with their tagline: Moving Packaging Forward.

To amplify Ernest’s unique commitment to their clients’ success, we also created and launched a dynamic new visual brand identity. We saw Ernest’s fun, thoughtful and a little avant-garde culture as an asset and amplified it visually through unique patterns, collages, and chevrons.

We also made client-centricity central to their new website. Their digital presence now has a local vibe, with 15 versions of their website landing page— one national site with 14 divisional microsites. The website contains browser configurations to recognize someone’s general location in order to serve them the relevant local website, branded elements, and content. We make sure that local customer stories and employee profiles come up first, and all content is contributed by the regional divisions themselves for top-notch authenticity.

The website revamp included Ernest’s new video platform, Ernest+. On it, users can enjoy an extensive library of over 75 videos with a seamless, user-friendly experience.

For a company to succeed, brand-culture alignment must run through the entire organization. We created content, experiences, and tools built specifically for Ernest employees to understand and embrace the new brand.

When it was time to introduce Ernest’s new brand externally, we used a mix of paid marketing, owned media channels, and 1-on-1 customer interactions. The launch campaign, dubbed “Witness the Fresh,” features Dudley—a three-day-old stale donut mascot who embodies the transformation and freshness that Ernest delivers. The campaign has already seen success, with a 123% quarter over quarter increase in website traffic and a 1168% increase in leads.