Breakroom in a Box
Breakroom in a Box is designed for all the employees suddenly working at home alone. And for employers who want to show appreciation with good coffee, tea, and snacks. Each box is easily customized by employees and shipped directly to their homes.
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Product Development
Branding
Launch Strategy
Web Design
Positioning
Pricing Strategy
Packaging Design
Copywriting
UI Design
Customer Research & Analysis
Ads/Campaign Design
The Process
In the doom and gloom of the pandemic, office managers were responsible for the needs of people working in isolation. I was able to collect over one-hundred survey responses from office managers. And the pattern was clear:
Beyond recreating perks and home office setups, office managers told me their main goal was to find something—anything—that “made employees feel appreciated” during a time of adjustment.
The Breakroom in a Box brand is designed to highlight the people in our work lives, to reconnect over food and drink—even if you only see each other through a screen.
Positioning
Breakroom in a Box has two major advantages.
One, we designed the software specifically around office managers and business owners. Easy management is one-half of the product.
Two, I worked with our product curation team to source premium products, small batch stuff, something you might find at the checkout of a specialty grocery store. Basically, hip stuff they’d be excited to try.
There were some solid competitors. But, beyond them, most solutions on the market required a lot of hands-on management, had salesy-vibes, and appeared like stale snack warehouses.
So, I positioned Breakroom in a Box as a thoughtful gift—unique to every person.
Branding
In the midst of endless news cycles and worries, I needed to create a brand that worked with the times.
First, the brand had to be optimistic, but not that forced, fake, and bubbly optimism. The world was on edge after all.
Second, it had to feel like a thoughtful gift.
So, thinking of all the office managers I had gotten to know over the years, I chose to create a brand that represented their view: people-focused.
The brand almost always showed people enjoying coffee or snacks with other people while talking on Zoom calls or from balconies. All good gatherings of people begin with food and drink. This is how co-workers become friends: In the break room, an office party, or a company dinner. Here is where we find the joys outside of tasks and deadlines. People, it’s always the people.
Web ad.
Cutout door hangers for the new home office. Loved this idea from then CFO, Cindy March.
Postcard.
‘How it Works’ page
Lessons Learned
Assumptions are assumptions because they seem so obvious. But, the answers are always in the customers. You must regularly ask them with sincerity and curiosity what problems can or do we solve? This is especially overlooked during fast-moving stressful times.
If you ask questions with genuine curiosity, customers will share their problems. And sometimes, the answer pops your assumptions like a balloon. So, get outside of the four walls of your business and talk to customers and then it’s simple: help them.
📣 Shoutout to Louis Grenier and the incredible cohort of STFO for helping me gain clarity on customer data during launch.
Here’s a fun little bonus.
I designed the small booklet below as part of an email campaign.
Employee perks like the breakroom were largely forgotten at the start of the pandemic. Telling the story of employees in this inviting way proved to be our most engaged email.
Lesson: Don’t spam people with junk. Respect them. Earn the right to be in a person’s inbox and they’ll participate.
This idea was inspired by Andre Chaperon’s writing on email campaigns.
