Wild Thingz had a great product: an organic, vegan sweet made with zero artificial nasties and with half the sugar of a big-brand sweet. But it needed a brand positioning, a role in the category, a name and an identity.

I ran a category audit, identified a target consumer, developed a a creative platform for the brand that made its product differences sing, and established the category entry points that its marketing needed to build associations with.

The crucial insight was that sweets as a category are mostly consumed by kids, but tend to be bought reluctantly by worried parents. Because of that, better-for-you sweets tend to focus their attentions on parent-appeal, with health-conscious messages that make mum and dad feel less guilty – but that are a snooze-fest for kids. They’re all bland white packaging, covered in laudable-but-dull health claims.

I worked with How&How to create a brand that expressed the sweets’ assets – that they’re organic and plant-based – in terms that had masses of kid appeal. We redesigned the shape of the sweets themselves, turning them into gruesome creepy crawlies. And we gave the brand a mascot, Vee the Venus Fly Trap, who made eating plants far more fun than eating conventional, hoof-based sweets.

• A brand positioning and category role
• A trade narrative
• A hierarchy of messaging for consumers
• A creative platform for the brand visual identity and comms
• Category entry points to focus on