What's the best way
to inform consumers about a new beverage that they've never heard of or
tasted? Should you build an identity that describes it in detail, making allusions
to the product's taste and benefits using its name and packaging? Or is
it better to give the slightest sliver of a suggestion of a hint through type
and design, then offer no additional clues at all?
In
the case of Kombucha Wonder Drink, the latter decision held sway. Sandstrom
Design, working with the creator of the beverage, an experienced tea purveyor
and bottler in Portland, Oregon, made a conscious choice to leave a new drink
product almost entirely unexplained in its identity and marketing. In this way,
they reasoned, curious consumers would be forced to figure out Kombucha on their
own and so become much more involved with the brand. It would become the choice
for people who were really “in the know.”
Kombucha (pronounced “Kume-bacha”)
is a naturally fermented green tea drink that is enjoyed in Asia and parts of
Europe for its reputed healthful benefits, “Kombucha: A culture brewed
in Asia for 5,000 years. Villagers don't have health clubs. They have this,”
reads one block of sales copy. The new product was designed to appeal to health
food fans, baby boomers interested in their health, and anyone who is not averse
to new ideas and products.
“We designed it to
not look like anything else available—not a tea, not an energy drink, not
a soft drink, not an alcoholic drink. It's supposed to be very mysterious,
so the buyer can't even imagine where it comes from,” explains Rick
Braithwaite, president of Sandstrom Design, Portland.
Prior to Kombucha Wonder
Drink's invention, the drink's creator, a tea enthusiast Stephen Lee,
had year's of experience in the beverage market. He had watched the introduction
and failure of another bottled kombucha product that was briefly available on
the market. He felt that, with just the right identity, he could make the product
a success.
Sandstrom Design began by
naming the new drink. Braithwaite recalls that they considered a number of campy
names such as Bucha, Vicha, Continental Kombucha, and Hans and Young Li's
Fabulous Kombucha Drink, but in the end, concluded that the name “Kombucha”
was important and should be given primary importance.
“For those who were
already familiar with Kombucha, why hide what it is?” he asks. “For
those who don't know what it is, it sounds foreign, but who knows where
it's from. Plus it's just a fun name to say.”
“Wonder Drink”
had its own appeal. “It's a wonderful understatement, but in a clunky
way. It had an intentional lack of sophistication that made it seem all the
more believable,” Braithwaite adds.
With a name agreed upon,
design of the product packaging could commence. Braithwaite says the goal throughout
this process was to make the design a bit hard to place. A number of designs
were comped up: Sandstrom designers present all of their logo designs in context—in
this case, on mocked-up bottles. A logo plopped on a piece of paper is out of
context, they believe.
A number of comps were presented:
One version had contemporary design cues and looked a bit like a bottled water
product. “You would know what that one would taste like before you even
tried it,” says Braithwaite. Another design was more apothecary-like, as
if it came from an old drug store. It was deemed “too Midwestern,”
expected and geographically specific.
There
are no immediate design cues in the ultimately selected direction that immediately
point the mindtoward a specific country or culture. Nor are there any nods toward
other beverage products on the market.
“We didn't want
it to compete with bottled water or tea or beer or any other product. We needed
to keep it a little mysterious and unknown, from no specific place or time.
Make thepeople have to discover it,” Braithwaite says. “We like the
idea of discoverability of a brand. It involves the consumer more in the process.
If they don't figure it out completely, at least they will try to make
it their own. It's not like Coca-Cola or some other commoditized soft drink
where the product is only made interesting through millions of dollars of advertising
and promotion.”
The logo, a faintly Arabic-flavored
shape, contains the product's name. The engraved personality of the all
caps Rosewood font makes the brand feel as though it might be old, but the product's
stock bottle's shape suggests that it is more contemporary. A secondary
typeface on the bottle, Art Gothic, has a distinctly Asian flair. The bottle's
silver cap carries a secondary identifier—KWD—which has turned into
a useful mark for use on other Kombucha-related marketing.
“There is a significant
risk in doing what we did: People may not understand the product,” Braithwaite
says. “We can't spend millions on advertising, so the product has
to grow through word-of-mouth and pleasant experience, that it is an exclusive
product. Once people find it, they know it and tell their friends about it.
And it has turned out to very gift-able [sold in a three-bottle pack], which
is really high praise for a product.”
So far, Kombucha Wonder
Drink has been a huge success. Only introduced to the market in late 200 and
initially intended for a West Coast launch, it has attracted distributors throughout
the U.S. and several foreign countries. Many stores are finding it difficult
to keep an adequate inventory, says Stephen Lee, happily.
This article is excerpted
from the upcoming book, "LogoLounge" (Rockport Publishers), to be
released in February 2003.
©2007 Logolounge Inc.
