The Cookie Project

The Cookie Project is at the vanguard of bringing equal opportunities to people with disabilities in Auckland – and it is all done through baking cookies that use the finest New Zealand ingredients. However, the project hit a brick wall with the e-commerce website it needed. We were tasked with transforming that, and personalising the connection between the baker and the consumer through packaging and how each consumer can congratulate the baker for their work.

We built a high-quality e-commerce website for The Cookie Project after we learned they had been let down. A big launch had been planned, but that meant we had to turn around a three-month website build in just two weeks. We delivered it – and we did it all for free, with every member of the team working day and night and on their days off, because we believed in The Cookie Project’s mission. We not only built an e-commerce website that’s really easy to buy cookies from, but we also came up with brand elements, guidelines, icons and visual elements.

The website is a mobile optimised build that meets the accessibility requirements of the Accessibility Tick programme, an initiative of the Blind Foundation. It is a unique build in that we built a ‘going live’ page that was used for a live stream of the website official launch. Another unique element is a counter in which the number of employment hours for the disability community is updated. And another unique feature is that the store directly connects with NZ Post so that print packing slips, invoices and parcel labels are automatically prepared after orders are made.

Ongoing support includes product and packaging design that includes a QR code that will go to the website profile of the person who baked the cookies. This has led to encouragement for the bakers as they have comments from consumers, saying how appreciative they are for their work. A marketing and digital strategy, copywriting, social media images and much more all form part of the innovative, powerful support that we’ve given The Cookie Project and the disability community it is providing new opportunities to in Auckland. The employment rate for people with a disability in New Zealand is just 22% compared to 70% for those who are non-disabled. What should be even more concerning for New Zealanders is that some of the people with disabilities who are categorised as being employed have actually been paid below the minimum page. The Cookie Project, however, pays the minimum wage guaranteed and has generated, part in thanks to the work we've done, over 2,000 hours of employment for the disability community.