Penguin Packaging
Giving a food-packaging company a personality the entire industry lacked — and watching it become one of the most respected names in the space. From zero to $40M+ in five years.
The Brief
Food packaging is about as unglamorous as B2B gets — a legacy industry of identical vendors, beige catalogs, and "we deliver value through synergy" sameness. Penguin, my brother-in-law's company, was building something genuinely better in that space: deep service, vertical integration, a smarter supply chain. The problem was that everyone claims that, and none of it sounds like anything. The job was to make Penguin impossible to confuse with the field — to give a serious operator a brand with a pulse, so the quality of the business finally had a voice to match.
The Approach
The strategy was contrarian on purpose: in a category terrified of personality, lead with it. So Penguin got quirky — warm, funny, a little self-aware, unmistakably human. "Come fly with us" (so maybe penguins can't, but we'll see ourselves out). Markets described as turning whole product into "yeah, that's actually ready to sell." A footer that swears no penguins were harmed, only verbally accosted. None of it is decoration — it's a deliberate DNA, engineered to make a buyer feel something in a market that never does, and to signal the thing that's actually true: this company is more thoughtful, more human, and more fun to work with than its competitors.
The Build
The whole identity and the system to run it: brand strategy and positioning, voice and messaging, logo and visual identity, illustration, the website, advertising and marketing, and every ancillary artifact you can think of — office decor, collateral, social, and yes, the annual Penguin calendars. One coherent, playful, ownable world, built so a deeply serious business could show up in its dull category and instantly be the one everyone remembers.
The Outcome
Founded in 2021, Penguin has grown to $40M+ in gross revenue, and become one of the most respected names in its space, on the strength of service, partnership, and a brand that finally matched the ambition. Proof of something I believe everywhere: sharp positioning and real personality move the needle hardest in the industries that have the least of it.
In a category that's allergic to fun, fun was the strategy. Turns out the most boring markets are where a little personality is worth the most.