Fresh Coast - Brand Refresh
Over the past couple of years, Fresh Coast had noticed that they had a few products that were drastically outperforming all of their other staple product. They noticed that people wanted something that they had created as more of an entry-level product and that it had generated a large part of their overall sales that year. Based on this and the change that they had seen in the market since the original creation of their brand identity, they realized that they needed to pivot their company, and thus needed to visually represent that with a brand refresh. Fresh Coast engaged Verken with a document packed full of information on who they wanted to pivot their company to, how they were going to change their messaging, the shift of product lineups, and a few companies that they needed to compete against.
From there, Verken spent time researching the competitive landscape, highlighting the wins and losses, what worked and what didn't so that we could learn from the people who had gone before us. With our findings, we created a few different initial directions the Fresh Coast team could take and still get done what they wanted to accomplish. Once a direction was chosen, it was full steam ahead working closely with the team to ensure that it was following the original reason for the pivot. We didn't want to fully redesign everything. It was important to us that we kept most of what worked well in the original identity and continued building on that equity that we had spent so much effort building. With that in mind, we walked a tight balance between keeping some of the brand's heritage, yet giving some other parts a facelift and a new coat of paint.
As a result, Fresh Coast has been able to adapt to this new change in the market and effectively communicate to their customers in a new, clearer way. We built a robust system that allowed anyone with the brand guidebook to create branded marketing material that is consistent and high-quality by detailing the rules of the entire visual identity. We knew that we might not be able to make ever piece of content for them, so we wanted to give them the tools and rules to carry out this visual identity into every department of their business moving forward.
Throughout this entire process, we road the fine line of building on the successes of the past, but pivoting towards the new direction based on the indicators of the market. We recommend that every company perform some sort of self-introspective process roughly every two years to make sure that their identity properly represents their current mission, vision, and values so that customers can understand you on that deeper level. Customers buy from people they like and understand, so it's important that you keep your messaging simple, and your mission transparent.