BEYOND BRAND HEARTLAND

Inventive food and beverage brands are looking outside conventional category norms and experimenting with cross-industry formats. Symbiotic partnerships between likeminded brands are creating compelling product mash-ups that adhere to core brand values.

EXPERIENTIAL SPACES PROVIDE CONTEXT

Creative brands are bringing products to life with imaginative retail and hospitality settings. British chocolate brand Cadbury’s pop-up café serves up creations made exclusively with its chocolate Creme Eggs, enabling visitors to experience products in the context of the Cadbury brand narrative and ethos.

CROSS-CATEGORY VENTURES

Traditional packaging cues are being subverted by shrewd brands in an effort to generate maximum shelf standout. 

LOCALISATION OF PRODUCT

Aiming to establish closer connections with regional audiences, intuitive brands are creating products inspired by local holidays, festivals and cultural nuances. This enables them to woo uncertain consumers with familiarity and tradition.

CREDIBLE CROSSOVERS

‘To retain credibility for brand stretch, brands need to have established in the minds of consumers a strong sense of what they stand for beyond the functional… a brand then has license to extend into all sorts of areas that are compatible with its heartland,’ Alex Ririe, at UK creative agency Coley Porter Bell, told Stylus.