2,000 corporate gift boxes in 10 days

The brief

An advertising agency in Europe was preparing corporate gift boxes for a company event. The boxes had to hold a set of corporate gifts and carry the agency's standard of presentation — this was a box that would be handed to clients and partners in person, not shipped through a warehouse.

Two constraints shaped every decision that followed. First, the box was large — 400 × 280 × 120 mm. Second, the deadline was immovable: the event had a fixed date.

The problem was the insert, not the box

In a rigid box this size, the insert stops being a detail and becomes the single biggest cost lever. A box of 400 × 280 mm needs an insert covering most of its footprint, so whatever material you choose, you are choosing it at scale.

The default answer for a premium rigid box is an EVA foam insert. It looks the part and it protects well — and it would have pushed the unit cost up substantially across 2,000 pieces.

The obvious cheaper answer, EPE (pearl cotton), would have solved the cost problem and created a different one: at this scale its texture reads as protective packing, not as a gift. A corporate gift box that feels like it was packed by a courier defeats the purpose.

What we did instead

We built the insert from two layers: XPE faced onto EPE. The XPE (cross-linked polyethylene) forms the visible top surface — finer cell structure, flat and even, so the insert presents cleanly when the lid opens. The EPE underneath does the structural work, supplying thickness and cushioning at a fraction of the cost of the same volume in EVA.

In other words: the customer-facing surface is upgraded, the hidden bulk is not. The box opens as a premium insert, and the invoice does not carry the premium material.

Box specification

The box itself was a magnetic book-style rigid construction: hinged like a book, held closed by magnets, which suits a large flat format better than a lift-off lid because it stays rigid across a 400 mm span and opens without needing two hands.

It was built on 1,800 gsm greyboard — heavier than our 1,200 gsm standard, chosen because a box this size flexes if the board is too light. The surface carries UV printing with matte lamination over the top.

The deadline

The event date could not move, so the schedule could not either. The full run of 2,000 boxes was completed in 10 days, then air-freighted so it would land in time for the event.