Cow & Gate Food tasked Conran Design Group with harmonising and redesigning its baby food portfolio to better reflect the brand's core values: authenticity, weaning expertise and instinctive parenting.
The changes support the brand to substantiate its modern positioning as the baby food brand that believes little ones are happiest when they’re brought up naturally, at their own pace.
The creative challenge was to provide an evolutionary not revolutionary approach, so that parents’ on-shelf product recognition was not affected. Conran leveraged the new packaging design as a strategic asset to best reflect Cow & Gate’s new brand proposition.
The project involved harmonising 47 SKUs (across cereals, fruit pouches (multipack and single), dairy pots, rice cakes, breadsticks and steam trays) ensuring an on-shelf experience that is consistent and easy to navigate. Flavour differentiation within product ranges was a key driver in the process and led to the development of ingredient-led colours for product titles.
Product ingredients are heroed throughout the new packaging portfolio new contemporary photography was used to dial up appeal. Product ingredients were arranged in natural settings (nestled in grass or on wooden boards) and grains were shot in their sheafs. In the portfolio, little characters (birds and ladybirds) are dotted around packs to help improve the tone of voice; promoting a sense of fun while delivering important product information and parental advice.
Specific tasks included removing the Super Yummies sub-brand on Breadsticks and Dairy Pots products to bring further harmonisation across the foods portfolio and strengthen recognition and association with the Cow & Gate parent brand.
The project also involved launching the new Portion of Grain porridge range in the UK market. The range, which mirrors adult cereal trends, has a special design treatment to promote shelf stand out with textured, natural backgrounds.
