Elanders Print & Packaging

← All work

Elanders Print & Packaging manufactures at sites in seven countries. Since 2024 we have been responsible for the section’s entire international marketing – from the brand through the first shared website to day-to-day communication.

Details from the Elanders Print & Packaging website

Sector: Print and packaging industry
Period: since 2024
Engagement: Ongoing management of international marketing
Website: www.elanders-print.com ↗

Brand profile

Elanders Print & Packaging produces at sites across seven countries in Europe and the USA: print on demand, packaging, publications, user manuals, together with fulfilment and logistics. More than a hundred years of manufacturing experience – something you only really grasp standing in one of the halls. What distinguishes the company is not the machinery but its ability to hook into its customers’ systems: digitally integrated is not a promise made for the website here, it is how the business runs. The section belongs to the Elanders group, which has brought its brands together under the principle “One Brand – One Company”.

Project definition

As part of that consolidation, we took over the section’s entire international marketing in 2024. The starting point was fragmented: seven countries that had until then gone their own way – different products, different markets, and their own materials grown over years. Someone requesting a quote in Poland formed a different impression of Elanders than someone in the USA. The task was therefore not to design a brand presence but to find a shared brand in which every site could recognise itself. And the existing identity was to be developed further, not replaced: for a company with this history, a clean break would have been the wrong signal.

Scope of work

We run the section’s international marketing in full and on an ongoing basis. That covers developing the corporate identity further, working out the brand experiences and establishing a binding brand language, including the care required around sustainability claims. It also covers the first shared international website, a chatbot with a price calculator, running social media, concepts and campaigns, blog articles, direction of video and photo shoots, and every application from vehicle livery through merchandise and presentation templates to support at trade fairs. Two independent group brands, Pack Your Food and Print Emotion, have come out of the same collaboration.

The Elanders Print & Packaging website on desktop and phone

How we went about it

A whole concept, with an agenda

Before any design work came a concept for the entire presence – with an agenda setting out what would be produced in what order. With six countries involved that is no formality: without a shared schedule you negotiate every decision six times over.

International alignment

The sites were brought in early rather than informed at the end. Every location contributed its product range, its markets and its objections. That costs time, and it is the only way a shared presence is actually lived afterwards.

Working through the content

All content was reviewed, ordered and rebuilt – products, services, references, site profiles. Only then did it become visible what genuinely is shared and what rightly stays different.

One overall concept, run continuously

The parts became an overall concept that has been carried forward ever since. We run the communication continuously instead of delivering a package and moving on.

The solution

Developing an existing identity rather than replacing it

For a company with over a hundred years of manufacturing history, a clean break would have sent the wrong signal – inside and out. So we did not start drawing again; we sharpened the existing identity and extended it to a section that had not previously existed in this form: colour, typography, imagery and layout grids were tested against applications in seven countries and made precise wherever they had left room for interpretation. Developing further means, here: the sites still recognise themselves and nonetheless find something they share.

Brand experiences: the points where a brand actually happens

A brand is not created in a manual but where people encounter it. We worked through those points systematically and designed them – from the trade fair stand to the van in the yard to the presentation template a salesperson in Sweden opens in the morning. That includes vehicle livery, merchandise, stationery and support at trade fairs. It is precisely these unremarkable applications that decide whether a brand holds up day to day or only looks good in a presentation.

A brand language that holds up on sustainability

We defined how Elanders sounds: tone of voice, core messages, language rules for seven countries and several languages. The claim “We love print” is ours too – it says in three words what a paragraph would not say better. Particular care went into the sustainability claims: wording was set up so that it stays verifiable and does not stray anywhere near greenwashing. That is work nobody sees – and it is what keeps a company from being taken to task over one well-meant half-sentence.

The first shared international website

For the first time, one presence for the entire section – with a structure in which each site presents its own products and services. Shared brand, different content: someone looking for packaging in Poland does not end up in the range offered from Ohio.

Chatbot with price calculator

For the quoting stage we built a chatbot with a price calculator attached. Prospects get a reliable order of magnitude before anyone from sales calls back – and the conversation then starts in the right place instead of at the question of what this is about at all.

Ongoing communication

We run social media, develop concepts and campaigns, write blog articles and direct video and photo shoots. The brand is not rolled out once; it is carried forward.

Outcome

Seven countries have appeared as one brand ever since, without losing what each of them offers. Communication comes from one place instead of seven, the quoting stage begins pre-qualified, and the group has a language that holds up even when the subject is sustainability. Two independent brands, Pack Your Food and Print Emotion, have grown out of the same collaboration.