Case Study

Tomi / To die out of love for ketchup

Packaging concept Packaging concept Packaging concept

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Context
Following the package design facelift in 2005, Tomi helped Orkla Foods Romania to keep its leading position
within the Romanian ketchup market, which covers almost 40% of the market with its two brands: Tomi and
LaMinut.

Following a pitch process, BrandTailors team was chosen to develop a new graphic solution for the Tomi
packaging that would remain in line with the personality of the brand (innovative, amusing, modern) and that
would keep the shelf line visual supremacy at the same time.

The need to maintain its leadership in the highly competitive market of the second half of 2008, which saw the
launch of Helmann’s ketchup and the potential market entry of Heinz, determined Orkla Foods Romania to
introduce a new packaging technology that enabled the introduction of a sleeve to the product packaging. This
modification brought the need to reconsider the entire package design concept, not a mere adaptation of the
existing package design.

Challenge
Given that the same team previously came up with two packaging solutions with obvious impact on the sales
levels registered by Tomi and that “Tomi the tomato” has been shaped to embody so many memorable
characters on the previous package design (devil, angel, punker, flame-man and pizza guy), how were we to
develop a new creative perspective that would yet again innovate an already unconventional package design?

Solution
The package design concept was developed using the following category insight as a starting point: “in order to

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make ketchup one must kill the tomatoes”. But, because Tomi is the best ketchup, tomatoes commit suicide to
become Tomi ketchup.

Thus, we developed the concept “to die out of love for ketchup” and the four ways of the tomato’s self sacrifice
for the four ketchup varieties – sweet, hot, x-tra hot and pizza flavoured. For each way of sacrifice, BrandTailors
created a story named “The adventures of the tomato”, that was introduced on the back of the package in the
form of a short poem.

Tomi Sweet
“That’s it! I’m done with being a tomato! I want to become Tomi Sweet on the spot! But I need help to sweeten,
‘cause I want everyone to like me!”

Tomi Sweet 1 kg
“Oh, Tomato god! Listen to me! I wish to instantly become a Mega Tomi Sweet! Give me red tasty flesh, so I can
be on everybody’s table!”

Tomi Hot
“I want to be enriched with chilli flavor / I will become Tomi Hot on the spot” / Said the tomato eagerly
awaiting / And turning into ketchup – really hot.

Tomi Pizza
Il capo di tomate / Tomi screams his lungs out: / “Bring on the oregano, bring on the basil flavour! / I want to
hastily turn to delicious Tomi Pizza” / And from then on, the tomato is history, as everybody knows!

Tomi X-tra Hot

“Bring on the flames! / And let the fire burn! / So let me become ketchup and start to change my luck / I want
them al to call me Tomi X-tra Hot / So everyone will know / That I am burning hot!”

Given that Tomi is part of BrandTailors portfolio for many years

now and that the previous executions are so creative, we took this
project as a great personal challenge., Thus, as the passion for
tomatoes is characteristic to Tomi and the passion for food is
characteristic to our team, this helped us generate a very strong
Alina Crangă
creative idea, the way our clients are accustomed to. Account Manager

The newly developed package design concept redefined the Tomi attitude and capitalized as much as possible
on the space provided by the sleeve technology. Furthermore, the concept is so generous that it opens a new
path for extending Tomi to yet more SKUs.

Contribution
Brand strategy - Beatrice Daniş
Graphic concept - Adrian Stănculeț
Graphic development - Melania Nemeș
Project management - Alina Crangă
Image retouching and printing pre-production - Mircea Brătianu

Project implementation started in June 2009.

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