PENNY | PRICE PACKS | 2025
Printing the Price Right on the Pack: A Promise You Can't Take Back / PENNY "PRICE PACKS"
In an age when prices feel impossible to predict, PENNY put the price itself—not quality claims—front and center on its packaging. In German food advertising, where touting quality is the norm, this was a pretty bold bet.
The problem
With inflation pushing prices up and shifting day to day, people were struggling just to plan a budget. As a discount retailer, PENNY needed to prove it was genuinely keeping costs down, especially up against Aldi and Lidl.
The insight
Packaging takes months to produce and can't be changed at the last minute. So printing a price directly on the pack becomes, in effect, a promise: prices won't go up for a while. CD Matthäus Frost said that by making the price the star, they were communicating stability.
The idea
Five products: oatmeal, toast, salt, chips, and mayonnaise. The team studied which colors competitors used for each category and built an intuitive color system around them—yellow for toast, blue for oatmeal and mayo. The typeface was Akko, exclusive to PENNY. The design leaned so hard on price and color alone that it barely needed a logo or headline. Out-of-home ads carried the same look.
What happened
In four weeks, 1.4 million units sold, with toast and chips selling out within seven days. It became PENNY's best sales month ever. The campaign won the Grand Prix in Print & Publishing at Cannes Lions 2025.
Afterthought
This wasn't a gimmick—it was a promise. Changing packaging across 2,150 stores isn't cheap or easy. They did it anyway, not to show off a clever idea, but to show they meant it. The simplest-looking ideas often hide the biggest decisions behind them.
Awards
- Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2025
