The Challenge
Improving Holiday Gift Sets for High-Volume Retail Under Tight Timelines
Papatui, the men’s skincare, hair, body, and tattoo care brand founded by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, needed to elevate its holiday gift sets to compete effectively within the highly crowded holiday health and beauty category at major retailers.
Project complexity included:
- Retailer-specific gift packs, each with custom scents, VAP inserts, and unique creative executions
- A compressed timeline due to production scheduling, photography, and approvals involving its deeply engaged celebrity founder
- The requirement to deliver improvements without exceeding existing product margins
A key issue with the previous gift pack design was that the body wash bottles frequently rotated during transit, causing the side or back of the product to appear in the packaging’s cutout window — significantly reducing visual impact on shelf.
With limited time, tight cost controls, and gift pack units destined for high-traffic holiday displays, the packaging solution had to be fast, precise, and cost neutral.
MRL Action Plan
Structural Packaging Optimization Without Added Cost
Leveraging its packaging engineering and production expertise, The MRL Group rapidly identified and resolved the core package issue.
The team developed a custom internal insert designed to stabilize the body wash bottles during transit, ensuring the product remained perfectly front-facing inside the window at all times.
Critically, this improvement:
- Preserved the premium look and feel of the gift pack
- Required limited additional packaging material
- Introduced no increase in unit cost
The solution was implemented quickly, meeting the brand’s compressed timeline while staying within existing margin constraints.
The Results
Stronger Shelf Impact, Faster Turnaround, and Cost Savings
The redesigned holiday gift packs delivered measurable improvements across both presentation and operations:
- Dramatically improved on-shelf visibility, with consistently front-facing products
- Leveraged nearshore manufacturing supply chain to drive on-time delivery with tight production and approval schedules
- Reduced overall cost compared to the previous solution
- Maintained full compliance with retailer packaging requirements for Target and Walmart
The optimized gift packs became a central element of Papatui’s broader 360-degree holiday marketing strategy, which included:
- In-store appearances by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
- Consumer shopping sprees
- Influencer marketing programs featuring the holiday gift sets
- Social media campaigns positioning the gift pack as a premium holiday solution for men’s grooming
Need Smarter Retail Packaging That Moves Faster and Costs Less?
The MRL Group helps brands optimize retail packaging design, improve on-shelf performance, accelerate speed-to-market and protect margins through engineering-led cost efficiencies.