Kona Crumble Cookies

Kona Crumble was a New York-style cookie company based on the island of Hawai’i, founded and managed by Daniela Bontecou.

I have always loved baking, and after much consideration, I decided to start a cookie business specializing in New York-style cookies—really BIG cookies!

Behind the Logo: The Kona Crumble logo features a chocolate chip cookie adorned with brown chips and crumbs. The name "Kona Crumble" is displayed above in our chosen font, Homie Lullaby. This playful, handwritten-style font adds a fun and personal touch to the brand's identity.

The color palette below showcases the primary colors of the brand, which also became the colors used for the packaging.

For the packaging, I designed three individual boxes, each featuring one of our signature colors. Each box represents a different flavor from our three main signature offerings: chocolate chip with walnuts, white chocolate chip with macadamias, and double chocolate with Nutella.

Our larger box was kept simple with a white base, complemented by a colorful sleeve to add a vibrant and fun touch to the overall packaging.

For social media, my goal was to showcase the cookies with high-quality photos that made viewers feel like they could almost taste them.

All the photos were taken by me in our makeshift home studio, which consisted of colored paper for the backgrounds and surfaces.

To organize the posts, I used Adobe Illustrator to lay out the photos and visualize how I wanted the profile to look. For captions and hashtags, I utilized ChatGPT to craft engaging content.

Primary Communications Channel: Our main platform for communication was Instagram, where we focused on sharing product photos, stories, and reels to engage with our audience.

Interactive Stories: Our Instagram stories were designed to be both interactive and informative, offering insights into our brand, pricing, upcoming pop-ups, cookie trivia, this or that polls, and holiday celebrations.

These strategies boosted engagement, helped grow our audience, and familiarized people with our brand.

Instagram and TikTok: Both our Instagram and TikTok accounts featured videos showcasing our cookie flavors, packaging materials, upcoming pop-ups, and mouthwatering shots of our cookies.

Our most-viewed video on TikTok reached 771 views, while our top-performing video on Instagram garnered 81 views.

Loyalty Program: Another strategy I implemented was a punch card system. Customers received a punch card to track their cookie purchases—after buying 10 cookies, they would get the 11th one for free. This program encouraged customers to make repeat purchases while rewarding their loyalty.

Kona Crumble was the second business I fully branded and founded. Although it was a successful business and people loved the product, we faced several challenges:

1. Production: Since we were baking the cookies at home, our production was limited to how many we could make at once.

2. Unpredictability: Our primary sales location was farmer's markets, which can be unpredictable due to factors like attendance and weather conditions.

3. Day-Old Sale: After a market, we sometimes had a lot of leftover product. We would announce a day-old sale on Instagram, offering cookies at a 50% discount. Even with the price reduction, we often still had a significant amount of leftover product, which proved challenging to manage.

Overall, Kona Crumble was an invaluable learning experience. Not only did it enhance my graphic design skills, but it also taught me packaging design, social media strategies, sales techniques, and money management.