TORONTO—Selling 4.4 million boxes of cookies yearly, the Girl Guides of Canada cookies are a major opportunity for the Girl Guides to communicate directly to consumers, but the cookies themselves weren’t enough to show the public the true experience of Guiding.

Anthem Worldwide (part of the brand development division of Schawk) was put in charge of communicating the idea of “Girl Greatness” and bringing awareness to the Girl Guide program  through the cookie packaging.


Members of a branch of Pathfinders (ages 12-14 years) talked with Anthem about how being involved with the organization has helped them build self confidence and have fun.

The Anthem team worked with Marcos Chin to visually communicate the Girl Guide experience.

Gary Oakley, creative director at Anthem Worldwide Toronto said, “Marcos Chin is an award-winning illustrator from Canada, graduating from the Ontario College of Art and Design. His work has appeared on book covers, advertisements, fashion catalogues, magazines, and CD covers. We felt his engaging illustrative style would tell a compelling visual story of the journey of experiences the girl lives when she joins Girl Guides.”

The orientation of the box was changed to vertical to create more canvas area to display Guiding activities. “The new design proudly leverages heritage elements of the organization such as the trefoil, badges and the Canada Cord pin, while also reflecting a contemporary organization that girls can relate to and want to be a part of from Sparks and Brownies to Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers,” Oakley said. In addition, the Girl Guide Cookie identity was replaced by the traditional Girl Guides of Canada logo to show more support for the organization and reinforce membership.


Girl Guide Chocolatey Mint cookies are currently available in the new packaging until December and the Classic sandwich cookies will go on sale in spring. Dave Pause, business manager, Girl Guide Cookies, of Girl Guides of Canada believes the redesign is a success.

“Packaging development stakeholders everywhere know that the integration between the development of packaging and its deployment to shelf is a complex equation,” he said. “The tight integration between Anthem’s development of the new packaging and Schawk’s deployment of it was seamless. The final outcome was a compelling package design that tells the dynamic Girl Guide story we wanted to present to the public.”