The pet food category has grown significantly over the last few years, gaining relevance as an important generator of foot traffic for retail chains. Fueled by trends like humanization and premiumization, the category has also landed on a value-added equation that is highly attractive for companies and brands with the adequate capacities.
The retail cooperative Consum had attempted to approach this category with their private label, Vitality, but were finding that the existing brand image was not fully generating the desired impact and had, over time and as the product range expanded, become increasingly diffuse in terms of design. With this challenge in mind, Consum reached out to Lantern Innovation in order to support them in defining a more strategic and centered approach to the category, one that would strengthen their positioning and maximize their chances at success.
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We jumped right in, kicking off with a thorough analysis of the Pet Food category in order to identify and characterize relevant trends, outline the competitive context and identify potential opportunities or white spaces for Consum's private label. We found that, led astray by aesthetic conventions and trends more relevant to other international markets, a large proportion of the Spanish market was positioning their offering in the category based on technical benefits and product-focused messaging. Among Consum's main competitors' positioning and messaging, pet owners were astonishingly absent, as was the rich and textured visual language and imaginary evoked by the very special relationship that they share with their pets. This reflection led to the development of an optimal positioning for Vitality, based on a more emotional focus: reflecting the importance and significance of the interaction and connection between a pet and their best friend. We knew that a "human-centric" approach, placing people in the spotlight through a design that depicts the pet posing and asking their owner for their Vitality meal, could be a key to success.
Having clearly defined the new visual identity, establishing design guidelines and helping Consum apply them throughout all of their product SKUs, the result is a new image for Vitality that manages to activate the dynamic and special link between pets and their owners, and also helps make the range more readible and easy to understand for consumers. Whether you're more of a dog person or a cat person, you can find Vitality's new image and design, developed by Lantern, in Consum's aisles today.
In the image below you can see the before and after, in the packaging.
