Sweetwell Rebranding and Marketing Strategy
10 year-old branding consultancy client, Sweetwell was going to finally enter the US consumer product market. Sweetwell started as a sugar substitute in 2010 in Costa Rica and rapidly grew into a sugar-free product line that sold in many countries in Latin America. To enter the US market, one important insight that was agreed upon after extensive market research was the fact that the brand needed to target a smaller, higher quality niche market. The Keto friendly product market was the perfect market for Sweetwell’s unique revolutionary sugar substitute recipe.
Update: The redesign and branding project was featured on the 2023 Best Confectionery Packaging Designs by DesignRush, and helped the brand to successfully launch in the US market, making it the #1 product from Costa Rica sold in Amazon.
The original logo, which was made in collaboration with Costarican agency Jotabequ in 2010, was outdated for 2020’s competitive Keto friendly product market. Sweetwell had long evolved from being just a sugar substitute company and the spoon didn’t align with the brand’s product line’s value proposition.
The new logo had to project wellness and origin. Sweetwell is a European sugar substitute recipe developed in Costa Rica with the best ingredients from Latin America and the world. It needed to look modern and be more flexible in terms of packaging integration. The concept of a mandala made with abstractions from Costarican elements such as the Baroque cartwheel, the banana palm leaf and native Bri-bri tribe symbols was created to convey balance, elegance and health.
Once the branding was created, the whole product line’s packaging had to be reinvented. The packaging had to be able stand out on competitive healthy product shelves, where packaging and design game was strong.
Because of the hand crafted appearance of the products, the packaging was designed to be photography focused, aligned with the color-block, over the top photography trends of 2020. The images were created with real products and their ingredients, emphasizing on the concept that Sweetwell snacks were made only with real, healthy and responsibly-sourced ingredients.
The Video
As part of the creative process, it was important to communicate Sweetwell’s long list of benefits in a simple, comprehensive way. A script with simple images and animated text that accompanied it was created to present Sweetwell’s new line of products to future retail clients, consumers and potential brand ambassadors.
The Digital Marketing Strategy
A simple but strong digitally-focused strategy was mapped for the product’s launch in the US market. Social media was a large part of the strategy proposal, but it was important to create presence in other digital outlets.
Although Amazon was going to be the first market where the new Sweetwell line would be sold, a Shopify shop was planned and designed for the future. Here, it was easier to explain the extensive list of benefits Sweetwell products provided to consumers.
A campaign with ads designed to target nutritionists and health experts was created to find partners for a digital affiliate program to start promoting the brand. The nature of Sweetwell’s unique benefits made this a to-go strategy. Specially in today’s influencer environment where consumers look for curated product recommendations, finding the right brand ambassadors was crucial.
