The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2022
Dingdong Maicai's Sweet As Candy wraps its sweetest 8424 melon in candy paper
An Alipay grocer delivers a 12.2%-sugar 8424 watermelon wrapped like candy — 23,000 people joined the social-media topic.
Dingdong Maicai (叮咚买菜)
What it had to solve
Dingdong Maicai, a fresh-food online store reachable through Alipay's mini-app platform, launched a variety of watermelons named 8424. At 12.2% sugar it was sweeter than the rest, but customers who ordered online could not taste that difference, so the box had to make the sweetness obvious and make receiving the order a pleasure.
How it works
Dingdong Maicai is a fresh-food online store that customers reach through Alipay's mini-program platform. It launched a variety of watermelons named 8424 whose 12.2% sugar content made them sweeter than the watermelons around them — a measurable advantage, but one that no online shopper could taste before ordering.
The packaging was built to carry that proof. Agency Tian Yu Kong designed the pack as candy wrapping — the Chinese title 糖纸西瓜 reads 'Sugar-Paper Watermelon' — so every delivery arrived looking like an oversized sweet. The wrapper was made to show fruit lovers at a glance just how sweet the 8424 is and to put a smile on their faces the moment they received the order.
The design turned an invisible claim (12.2% sugar) into a visible object (a box of candy) and made the unboxing the first moment of the campaign. Customers shared the packaging voluntarily, the topic reached 170 million page views with 23,000 people in the discussion, and the work entered the D&AD awards archive and the 2022 LongXi Creative Awards winners list.
Why it lands
- Online shoppers cannot squeeze, smell or taste the fruit, so the only honest proof of sweetness available at the order moment is the packaging itself.
- Candy is the culture's shorthand for sweet, so a watermelon delivered in candy wrapping makes the sugar claim legible before anyone cuts the melon.
- Building the idea into the unboxing gave customers something worth photographing — the package itself, not an ad, became the shared content.
- Dressing a commodity fruit as a gift made a technical spec feel like a treat rather than a label.
What it did
Customers who received 8424 watermelons shared the package on social media of their own accord: the related topic reached 170 million page views with 23,000 people taking part in the discussion. The pack also entered the D&AD Awards archive and was recognized at the 2022 LongXi Creative Awards.
What you can take
When an online product's edge is invisible until tasting, put the proof on the delivery box — the wrapper argues for the product before the fruit is cut.
Since then
The Sweet As Candy watermelon pack first appeared on Weibo on 2022-06-01 and was recognized at that year's LongXi Creative Awards, and D&AD logged the work in its awards archive and 2022 Annual under Dingdong Maicai. The design's own results — 170 million topic views and 23,000 discussion participants — came from customers reposting the package, which was exactly the exchange the design was chasing: for an online grocer the delivery box is the storefront, and the unboxing is the ad.
Sources
- Sweet As Candy — D&AD Awards archive
- Sweet As Candy | D&AD Annual 2022
- 2022 LongXi Creative Awards Winners — Sugar-Paper Watermelon (English)
- 2022 龙玺创意奖获奖作品 — 叮咚买菜《糖纸西瓜》
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