When former ABC journalist Jacqueline Arias launched Republica in 2007, it was the first only Fairtrade coffee on the supermarket shelves.
Back then, she says, the coffee aisle was dominated by brown and black packaging with a very Italian feel, so her decision to go with bright block colours on a white background was both innovative and reflective of the product’s Africa origins.
Fast forward five years and a number of other Fairtrade tea and coffee brands have been rolled out and Republica’s style of branding has become ubiquitous.
Last year, Arias approached Sydney-based Pulse Marketing to redesign the packaging, in a way that would not only differentiate the brand from its competitors but also better reflect the product’s quality and premium positioning.
“The quality of the coffee is paramount and hence we needed packaging that reflected that,” says Arias. “[It needed to be] premium, desirable and aspirational.”
Republica had also recently become the first food company in Australia to be certified Carbon Neutral by the Australian Government and the accreditation logo needed to be incorporated into the pack design.
Republica has a strong and devoted following on Facebook and other social media platforms, and this provided Pulse Marketing with vital insights into the core demographic – 25 to 45 year- old-women – who are buying the brand.
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Jacqueline Arias |
Republica's old packaging |
“Essentially what they told us was that they wanted a product that they’d be happy to have on their table when they had guests over,” says Lauren Brown, managing director of Pulse.
"For example, if people are buying bottled water to share with guests, they’d be willing to pay a dollar extra for glass packaging.”
“When we look at the data from Facebook and Twitter, we can see it’s predominantly women [buying our coffee], so we wanted the packaging to appeal to women, and any males [that buy it] are a bonus,” adds Arias.
Brown says that usually Pulse will try to evolve brands so as not to
alienate customer, but with the Republica packaging it really came down
to a ‘recreation’. The original logo was retained and the colour
palette was evolved to softer, earthier tones but, essentially,
consumers that were used to selecting the product they wanted based on
the pack colour could still do that.
“We wanted to make sure that,
if people were used to going to the supermarket and buying the red
pack, they could still find it,” says Brown. “But we didn’t want to use
that primary red, so we evolved the colours, rather than created a
complete disconnect.”
In order to reflect the premium position of the coffee, the artwork on the front of the pack is highly finessed with the use of soft natural colours, tones and textures with block colours laid on top to add depth. The main image on the front of the pack incorporates the profile of a woman, eyes downcast, contained in the shape of a flower that has been emphasised with spot varnish. The female imagery not only reflects the core demographic buying Republica, but in the case of the Frida product, the tea is also grown and harvested by women.
To communicate the products’ ethical credentials, there is a hierarchy of icons with the Fairtrade logo – being the most recognisable – in line with the brand name, the Australian Certified Organic logo along the seal at the top and the newly added Carbon Neutral logo in the bottom right hand corner.
On the back of the packs, there is a personal message from Arias in a handwritten font that explains how buying Republica products helps coffee growers in developing countries improve their lives. Alongside her message, Pulse included the Facebook icon, as the company has such a strong social media following and its Facebook page contains a wealth of information about the company.
“[We used the handwritten font because] we wanted it to be personalised,” says Brown. “Jacqueline is very much the face of the brand – she’s won a lot of awards and is well-known in the business community. This isn’t a product that’s come out of a big factory that doesn’t have a name.”
The first rebranded products were launched in April and the final stage, moving the instant coffees into the new look, is in progress. Since the rebranded products hit the supermarket shelves,the company has experienced a huge growth in sales and the number of units sold per store each week have doubled.
“Even the buyers at Coles and Woolworths have said how great [the new look packaging] is and that the products really stand out on shelf,” says Arias. “We can see from our very strong relationships with the supermarkets that they’re very happy with what we’re doing and are opening more opportunities to us because of how successful we’ve been.”
Next on the agenda, Republica is planning to further expand its range of Fairtrade products. First up, it’s looking into developing a snack product made from fruits that don’t exist in Australia covered in Belgium chocolate.
Republica supplies both Virgin and Jetstar with coffee products, and therefore when it’s looking to launch new products, it’ll always consider whether they’d be suitable for airline trays, as well as supermarket aisles.
