Candy is a crowded market. Whether infused gummies, chocolate truffles, or hard candy, consumers have thousands of brands to choose from when looking to satisfy their sweet tooth. To stand out, candy makers need more than great recipes: they need memorable presentation. That’s where Truffly Made comes in.
Custom silicone molds are a powerful tool to elevate your candy business.
Unique shapes, creative designs, and branded logos convert an ordinary sweet treat to a signature experience, elevating the overall perception of your brand and its products. Imagine you see a small round chocolate with a candy coating. You may not know who made it. But if that same candy features the letter 'm,' you know it's made by Mars.
In this blog, we’ll dive into the ways custom molds and branded candies can become your business’s competitive edge.
Instant Brand Recognition
Distinctive designs make your candy unmistakable. Fun shapes and clear brand names or logos grab attention, and over time, those visuals become easily recognizable as your candy. Consumers remember the look of the candy as much as the flavor, and unique candies that illustrate the brand are immediately associated with your brand name.
Boosted Brand Awareness
Packaging is a critical component of brand awareness, but what if your caramels are individually wrapped in clear cellophane inside of a bag of 20? What if your gummies are not individually wrapped at all?
With a custom mold, your branding sticks with the product itself. Consumers who share these candies with a friend or family don’t have to show someone the package or tell them who made it — they already know exactly where that sweet treat came from.
Brand Differentiation
While certain candy shapes are brand icons – think the gummy bear to Haribo and the chocolate kiss to Hershey – any brand can create lookalike candies with similar shape, size, and volume. Leveraging a seldom-used shape can begin building candy-to-brand associations, and adding a brand name or a logo means your candies cannot be duplicated and will remain unique in the market.
Create Positive Associations
Candies are naturally related to joy. Typically viewed as a treat, a little something sweet releases dopamine in your body, creating reward associations to the candy. If your candy is made with a custom mold, consumers are likely to form a positive association with your brand because of the feel-good response that occurs when people eat it.
Further, this creates an emotional connection with your brand. People want to repeat their feel-good experience, and if your branded candies are what gives them their dopamine, they are likely to want to come back for more. This positive reinforcement eventually forms an emotional bond with your brand itself.
Increase Brand Recall
Ever heard of the Marketing Rule of 7? This theory emphasizes that people need multiple touchpoints with a brand before making a purchase. Increased impressions – seeing a brand name, packaging, messaging, or logo – increases the likelihood of a consumer remembering your brand. Custom candy molds that feature brand names or logos create a touchpoint every time they pop a candy into their mouth. A single bag of 20 caramels transforms to 20 impressions as the caramels are enjoyed, boosting the chance they’ll remember your brand the next time they make a candy purchase.
Promote Word-Of-Mouth Marketing
People don’t always specifically name the brands of food they are sharing, especially if it’s something like an infused gummy. (“Want a gummy?” is far more common than “Want a [brand] gummy?”) If your customers are sharing their candies with friends or family, featuring your brand on the candy itself guarantees the consumer will see the name of your brand, whether or not it’s named out loud.
Social media can help this word-of-mouth brand sharing as well, even without influencer presence. Simple photo sharing with friend groups or networks can show your candies, prompting conversations around your brand when it appears front and center. In this way, it’s more visual familiarity than word-of-mouth, but the principle applies in the same way.
Elevate Product Perception
Homemade treats at your local farmers market or school bake sale may be tasty, but are not always crafted at a consistent, professional level. Using a custom mold that features unique shapes, designs, or logos is a definitive indication of professional production, which elevates the consumer’s perception of your candies.
Let Truffly Made Elevate Your Candies
At Truffly Made, our goal is to help your candy business be as successful as it can be. In addition to our inventory of Universal and State-Regulated Silicone Molds, we can create a custom mold specifically tailored to your brand. Simply head over to our Custom Molds page, enter your desired specifications, and upload your brand logo or design. We’ll create detailed technical drawings, and within 50 days of approval, you’ll be ready to use our custom molds to create your very own branded candies!
Have questions about creating your custom mold? Reach out to us at info@trufflymade.com.