Falconer’s Elves Create a Little Magic at Christmas

January 9th, 2023

Last Christmas, as in the previous three years, Falconer has given its valued customers an extra special gift as a token of our appreciation and gratitude for their continued business and support. We’re not talking about the standard very nice bottle of wine here, as appealing as that may be – no, this is an inspirational, innovative and highly creative in-house production, guaranteed to delight, entertain and leave a lasting impression.

Every year we try to design and produce a gift that is more complex and intriguing than the last; in terms of intricacy, the bar went up a few notches in 2022!

Background to the Falconer Christmas gift

Falconer has always given a Christmas gift to its customers. In years gone by we tended to go down the standard ‘bottle of something’ route, but this really did very little to raise the profile of Falconer. So, we decided that our Christmas gift should become an introduction into to what can really be achieved when you get a group of talented and creative people together in one room.

It was clear from initial discussions, that whatever we gave to our customers needed to be unique and distinctive, showcasing all the techniques we have at our disposal – print, foiling, embossing, debossing and different constructions. For the last 3 festive seasons we have successfully produced gift cartons that have layers of tactility and lots of parts to look at, to move and to open. Not surprisingly the gifts have resulted in various productive conversations with customers as they look to use similar concepts with their products.

Of course the real value comes from the response we get by surprising them with something they haven’t seen before, creating an unforgettable lasting impression of quality and innovation. It’s fair to say that receiving a Falconer Christmas gift has become a hotly anticipated event by our customers, while from our side it helps to significantly deepen customer relationships, increase satisfaction, improve customer loyalty and encourage brand advocacy.

Christmas gift concept for 2022

For Christmas 2022, we chose the theme of the fairy ballet, The Nutcracker. As a traditional and fun tale that helps us reminisce the childhood magic of Christmas – a theatrical story, presented in a theatrical gift box created as a book. On opening the box, the inside front cover contains a wonderful and fun diorama, lit up with lights, which begins the story of The Nutcracker. On the opposite side, authentic looking pages narrate the magical plot, before the reader arrives at the back page where four ‘Falconer’ inspired cocktail recipes can be found, alongside a range of ingredients, each packaged in individual compartments. These include: Slingsby Marmalade Gin, Fever Tree Tonic/Ginger Beer, Sims dried botanicals, a handmade Christmas Candle by the Yorkshire Candle Company, and handmade chocolates by Wildings Chocolates.

A final and intriguing part of this festive engagement is a competition, the aim of which being to keep conversations flowing. With details laid out on an impressive enclosed gold ticket, the competition requires participants to take images of their prepared cocktails in a Christmas setting, scan a QR code and send the pictures to Falconer for a chance to win a bottle of Tattinger Champagne and two champagne flutes. Following judging, the winner is to be notified at the end of January.

All the packaging material used to create the pack is FSC and fully recyclable and the whole concept from design to production took place at Falconer’s Halifax manufacturing site.

Design & production

On handling the box, what looks and feels like a rigid box is actually a fully recyclable carton. The outer book is produced on board with a cream reverse to lesson the raw edges. The intricate foil embellishment creates an old school book appearance, which combined with traditional green shades on the cover, are designed to give a 3-dimensional look and draw your eye to the foil. Inside and behind curtains, the 3D diorama gives the sense of excitement and imagination of a child’s mind at Christmas. The diorama was a fun but challenging part, as all the elements needed to align perfectly to give depth and hide the mechanics of the design. This element, along with the lights, were carefully put together and glued by hand. The diorama has a novel secondary function in that it can be taken out of the outer book and used either as a Christmas card that lights up, or as a festive decoration.

The pages of the book, produced to look like an aged hard back book, are printed on the uncoated side of cream backed board, with matte gold borders to frame each page. The gifts at the back of the book are individually packaged in textured stunning iridescent solid gold board to complement the foil detail throughout. As all the gifts needed to be at the same height, the fitments were used to make sure all cartons aligned – a design challenge in itself.

In creation, each material had been carefully considered throughout, from weight to texture and colour. The outer was carefully created with the minimum amount of raw edges and constructed to give the book stability and strength to house the products within.

A total of 360 boxes were produced. All of Falconer’s customers receive one and we also give one to every member of staff as a thank you for the last 12 months.

How was it received?

Apart from the instant delight and appreciation received when handling over the gifts in person, and the complimentary comments, the gift has been very well received on social media, with lots of unboxing videos being shown.

Here are some of the comments we’ve had…

“Unboxing beautiful corporate gifting with a ‘The Nutcracker’ theme, from Falconer Print & Packaging Ltd to Aceo Limited” ‍️

“Genius design, I cannot wait to try out the cocktails!”
“We are very particular where we source our supplies from, right down to the paper and ink so there was no competition when we met @falconerprint back in 2019. Yorkshire based these guys are second to none, they’ve been a huge support throughout our journey and theydo the BEST Christmas gifting. We are never shy sharing our suppliers as we know we only work with the best.”