Polar Hexpress

-Truth or Dare!
-DARE!
-I dare you to make a sustainable Hi-Cone replacement.

And that was how we started upon our mission to find a better alternative for the infamous  plastic ringed Hi-Cone. This led to the creation of the Polar Hexpress, a fun social and interactive package designed to connect others with Truth or Dare prompts printed on to the bottom. All while optimizing material usage, transport, sustainability, and recyclability.

            The design of the package is completely made of corrugated cardboard to make the package completely recyclable with the benefit of high recovery rate of 96% in 2018 due to common consumer knowledge that the material is recyclable. The recycling experience is also hassle free as the consumer can fold the empty package flat or easily pull apart the two pieces that comprise it. The simple, yet effective feature is one of the best parts of our minimal resource design, which allows the manufacturer to package 6-can coke bundles efficiently with minimal cardboard, keeping production cost very low.

            The physical design of our package optimally maximizes the balance between the manufacturer satisfaction and the consumer experience. The hexagonal shape was chosen for its efficacy in space and structural integrity, while being aesthetic, eye catching and extremely practical. The shape of the hexagon allows for dense packing in transport while maintaining strong structural integrity, highly efficient die-cuts to maximize usage of the corrugated material, and also for the cans to be displayed radially in a carousel type fashion. Second, our design cleverly displays the product in full glory, since it allows for full display of the product, which in turn allows for easy coke can reach, in group settings. Another great feature is the iconic polar bear on top as the handle, since it would stand out from the shelf and act as a practical handle. It is also surprisingly comfortable in the hand.

The “gotta have it” factor come from the Truth or Dare interactive game that accompanies our package design, which takes advantage of the radial design as a social party game meant to be played among a group facing each other. Each can in package would have a truth and a dare printed on the bottom. The player would choose Truth or Dare before hand in any method then follow the prompt chosen from the randomly selected can. This provides a strong emotional connection to the package that brings people together to learn about each other similar to the Share a Coke With campaign.