BevNET & NOSH Boot Camp 2021: Branding: Beverage

Speaker 1 [00:05] Just do it Think different. I'm loving it. Simple catchphrases and slogans that take a second to say, it took years to perfect. Not only is that important when building a brand, but it's also vital in creating the packaging that accompanies it. You have countless hours and strategy to formulate how you want your brand to be represented. So the packaging that was created should reflect an aesthetic that matches. Hello, I'm Kirk Viola. I'm the founder and creative director of Mind the Farm, a black-owned full-service branding and design agency. We focus primarily on packaging and marketing design for the CPG space. Now, a little bit about me. I've been in the industry for over 20 years, and I've worked with brands like Purina, Sol, EJ Gallo, Foster Farms, Motorola, blah, blah, blah. What I am trying to say is I've been doing this for a while. And in that time, I've learned there's certain formulas that companies use in order to make sure that their brand and their products go hand in hand in order to put their best foot forward when either launching a new product or revamping an existing one. So, during this presentation, I will walk you through the process, usually about 5 steps that will make your packaging have an effective impact on the shelf and hopefully do well in the market. And then after that, I'll show you an example of how that follows these steps. Now, you notice I said usually in regards to steps taken for product creation. That's because there are always intangibles discovered when delving into new packaging design, and these procedures are followed in order to hopefully streamline that process to avoid or, you know, sidestep any hiccups that may occur. The 5 steps that I've seen effectively used are have a name. You need to have a name. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes people are hell bent on using a name that A, they can't use, or B, don't even have a product for. Your name says a lot about your brand, like literally everything about your brand without any visual cues or reference to your product. 2, have a product. Sometimes a name is all you have to work with. I'm currently working with someone who has an amazing name for their brand. But not a product, so there's no way that I can create packaging for it. 3, have a brand strategy. Work with a company that specializes in brand strategy. Sometimes an agency that will be all inclusive, sometimes they'll have brand strategists, designers, brand marketers, and social marketers. However, as with my company, I don't pretend to do it all. My primary focus is branding and packaging. I just want to make your packaging look great. 4, exploration. What impact do you want to make on shelf? And if you're rebranding, do you want to revolutionize or revolutionize? I'll get further into that in a little bit. And 5, review and finalize. Make sure that the work you've done aligns with the branding, iee consistency. Now, let's flash back to 0.1. Have a name. Your name is the first step to making your brand ownable. In order to grow your brand, you need to make sure that the name you're using is trademark ready. Now, it may seem easy to trademark a name, but really is is difficult. So there are certain steps you can take to help you reach that goal. One, Name benefit focus, 2, mission focus, or even a combination to write new words. The main purpose is to make sure that your name, which is an introduction to your brand, is completely ownable. Oftentimes, naming exercises can be done with any group of people that you wish. I mean, you can crowdsource names, you can ask friends, or my personal favorite. I just ask my kids. However would best serve your brand to hire professionals that focus in that area. What's even bigger is that, make sure you get an NDA. You won't want your name to be shared and you want to keep that close to the vest. Once you have a name that you think works, go to test. That's the trademark electronic. Something source. You'll figure it out. But the government has a system where you can look up things that for a loose search. If it doesn't come up there, it's probably not taken. So I would seek out a trademark specialist after you've taken that step. Uh, that usually starts at around 200, but it's worth it, trust me. Have a product. Knowing what you are making, as well as how to properly procure, package, store, and transport your product is pertinent to moving forward before beginning your packaging journey. You need to speak to co-manufacturers and co-packagers to check for availability of your product. Now, keep in mind that it's on a grand scale. If you're making something out of your kitchen right now, already have a source lined up, it is still never too early to think about how to grow your band exponentially on a global level, or even a national level. Number 3, have a brand strategy. Most consumers are looking for real companies. What is their purpose? What's driving them? And how does this company's product differentiate itself from others in the same space? Now, this is where you get into the nitty-gritty of your packaging. The first two steps really help you get closer to bringing that idea to light. But when you have to have a great package design, you need to make sure that your brand strategy is on point. Some of the things you can look for are could be as follows. What findings were discovered when researching the competitors in the space? What worked well for them? What were the numbers in regards to their sales and performance in that space, and how could they improve? Now, um, I've learned that your brand needs to be your key identifier to demographic, purpose, and how it fits your consumers' needs and in that space. And if you want to make the biggest impact on shelves possible, your brand and packaging needs to have a succinct, clear, and powerful voice. A great brand strategist can help you with this. It is vital to your brand to determine how to move forward in that space. Number 4, exploration. This is the fun part, the part I love. This is the designer's interpretation of the brand strategy. The stronger the strategy, the more defined, unique, and market-ready the design. Anytime I approach this stage, I heavily rely on brand strategy, usually in the form of a creative brief, and move forward with different approaches to the design. Oftentimes too, these different approaches are called themes or buckets. A definite style is presented with each theme. Oftentimes, mood board, colors, fonts, other packaging, and even lifestyle imagery may accompany this. Anything that supports how this particular theme feels and what it's meant to be emulated at this time. With each theme, I try to push the branding and packaging in a direction that is both in line with the brand strategy, as well as just being openly creative. No filters, no hindrances. I approach with the mindset from what can I get away with, while remaining aligned with the brand strategy. How far can I push a concept to the point of being impactful without alienating the brand? That is a fine balance of creating effective packaging and a packaging system. If the client has the budget to work with it, and this is very important, if the client has the budget to work with this, use research options through either quantitative or qualitative study groups, and then suggest what they say and apply it to the packaging note that's done. It's an immediate feedback from your consumer, if it's going in the right direction, they will definitely let you know, it's the best way to take something to market. Number 5, review and finalize. Now we are close. We dotted all the I's, we cross all the T's. We have given the product its mission, voice, and packaging. Now it's time to go on into the fine details. Make sure the design is up to the proper specs, checking for typos. Checking for anything that may be wrong with the packaging, even specific details, a proofreader who specializes in technical packaging and also a legal advisor to make sure you haven't said anything wrong or approach anything from a manner that isn't kosher or isn't up to standards for what the packaging field needs. Now, this is also extremely nerve-wracking time for me. It's very satisfying to see your work actualized in the physical product, of course, it's like the coolest thing ever, walking into the store and seeing your stuff on the shelf. Um, there's a sense of pride and panic though, when everything is coming down to the wire. The best part of this is knowing that you did the best job possible. You followed the steps, you trusted the strategy, and hope that it performs well on market. This is the continual obstacle that companies face. Now, it's OK to second guess yourself. It's OK to feel worried or nervous. If you didn't, then something would be wrong with you. You could even feel horrified sometimes, but that is natural, trust me. However, what you need to do is to remember to trust the process. You follow the details, you followed everything that might work, and all that stuff for the packaging has worked for me in the past and hopefully it'll work for you in the future. Now, as I mentioned before, I'd walk you through a project that I worked on following this process. This brand was done, well, rebranded about five years ago. Zola Coconut Water approached me in 2016 for a product rebrand. As you can see, the old packaging wasn't reaching its full potential in a space that was, that wasn't heavily saturated at the time, but was still on a decent trajectory. Now if you look at the steps we've taken before. Number one, they have a name. The name is there, it's bold, it's proud. You can see that they're really forward with what their mission is. They want to be recognized on the shelf. You have a bright pop of yellow on a darker background, so it helps the brand stand out. 2, you know what the product is. This is a great thing since they've already been on the shelf, they have all the things necessary, the co-packer, the co-man, everything necessary for them to continue to produce their product. Number 3, brand strategy. Well, not exactly. The whole idea of Zola before was to bring fruits of the world to people. It wasn't necessarily about what the strategy was, other than you want to have like this destination feel, like, OK, this came from Thailand, this came from wherever. So what they had to do was go back and revamp how Zola should be perceived by the consumer. Resolve to package only the most super, super fruit hydration and plant-based nutrition. Embrace the journey and create new paths and familiar territories. Always push boundaries and inspire others to push themselves, and possess a passion and vitality that others can feel and honor in all that we do. Now that was a very succinct idea for a brand strategy. It outlined all the things necessary to have your voice, your mission, and everything else needed to create a succinct, clear, powerful mission-driven brand. Also that helps affect the packaging and make it its best. Now we go into the fun part, exploration. Now, when I, when doing exploration, I wanted to take an overview of all the different themes that we have explored. For instance, there's all kinds of things wrapped here with a person, there's a place, there's appetite appeal, there's big lettering, there's small lettering, there's finding, there's all kinds of ways that this brand had been approached. And when we went back and went to the research and discovered, one of the things that finally stood out when we're able to finalize and do the packaging was the merger of man. Land and water. This is the whole idea of Zola. It was the idea to refresh, to be fully involved and brought together in a, in a package, and in the design and in branding that all worked well to help move the brand forward. Now, as you can see, this was the redesign for Zola. The left was before and the white was after, of course, right? But I wanted to make the overall look and feel more hydrating, as well as take away the rainbow effect of all the colors that before from the previous label. Each can had a different color to it. So now you have a white background across all packaging. It gives a nice sense of uniformity, continuity, and elevates the brand, making it feel a bit more premium. A clear read for all of the flavors and color coordination as a nod to the original system. The icon representing the clear correlation between tree, man, and water. Complete representation of that idea of unity of man and nature, and increased appetite appeal as opposed to the original. Make the overall appearance more mouthwatering and prominent with flavor cues. And that's my process of how I make great packaging work. You have to follow the five steps. You have to have the name, you have to have a product, you have to have a strategy, you have to have uh exploration of all the possible ways to do it, and you have to be able to finalize, review it, and make sure that it works best for your environment. Thank you so much for listening. Please feel free to reach out, email me any time or contact me. I'd love to have a conversation. Thanks.