Personified Snacks

by Graziella Carbone

2005 – the era of the Friends of the Mill: the SchoolCreatives begins 

The year 2005 marks the beginning of the era of the Friends of the Mill, characters who transformed the gaming experience with the products into an everyday experience. The first members of this nice company were: Milk, Ciock and Al. Their names were clearly inspired by the different fillings of the Flutes: milk, chocolate and apricot.
The promotional activities of 2005 were aimed at elementary school children, coherent and synergic with the values ​​of the brand (creative play). For the “Back to School” campaign, an operation was therefore required that would present useful gifts and at the same time present the new characters.
Then, we created and inserted in all the packs of Flutes, from 29 August to 15 October, the SchoolCreatives with Milk, Ciock and Al.It consisted of a series of stamps, stencils, name badges and personalized stickers. Objects that, being commonly used in children’s pencil cases, enticed them to get the entire collection.
The first new element was the return of the box (now made in a single piece with a joined lid), suitable for containing the surprise, completed by a leaflet with an explanation of the use of the gadget and the presentation of the promotion.
The series of stickers was folded, packaged inside the box and completed with a pastel pencil with a very nice coloured tip. The stickers were pre-cut, both in the silhouette of the character and in the name. There were also some blank comic clouds that made it possible to write some sentences.
The stamps made of plastic material depicting the three characters were accompanied by a special cardboard which, properly wet with a few drops of water, acted as a buffer. Thus we began to communicate an association between characters and reference colours, also through the promotion: Milk – light blue, Ciock – red, Al – green.
An excellent result from a technical point of view as well as in ingenuity, was the study and creation of the stencils. It was possible to make them in one piece, folded in three. Therefore, when opened, they were of considerable size (about 12×6 centimeters). And they were packaged with a pencil with a tip suitable for passing through the spaces of the mask.
The SchoolCreatives series was completed by truly special key rings, made with the 3D technique. By moving the plate on itself you had the feeling that the characters were moving. On the back the possibility to write your name and phone number. The name badges were accompanied by a coloured plastic hook.

2005 – The CreatingFlutes Kite

Popular entertainment also among adults, it has been known and practiced for a few thousand years all over the world, even by the tribes of the remote islands of the South Pacific and by the Chinese. Indeed, it seems that the kite was born in the East a few thousand years ago, probably in China, where it is called the “bird of the wind”. In German-speaking countries the kite is called “dragon”, in Poland “winged horse”, in Portugal “parrot” and in France “flying deer”. Even the ancient Romans knew it: an amphora with the image of a girl flying a kite is exhibited at the Syracuse Museum. In 1825 George Pocock, a bizarre English teacher, went around in a carriage pulled by kites … at a good thirty kilometers an hour!
Given its universal diffusion, in 2005 it was decided to create a kite as part of the FlautiCreando promotional campaign. The most demanding basic feature was the size: it had to be a large kite, fly perfectly, but be contained in a box of not even twenty centimeters: a real challenge …
So I attended a course on kites in Milan and came to the solution: a series of sections of rods, which would have been fitted together with special fittings, would have been the frame. The kite, made in three variants for Milk, Ciock and Al, was completed by the colourful tails that gave stability to the flight. These kites were a real success and were also distributed on many other occasions and were the starting point for joyful workshops during the events of the Flauti Village in Bibione.
For in store operation, a tin box was created and personalized with the Friends of the Mill, suitable for holding pencils and crayons.