Case Study

Grania / The most amazing flour

Visual identity Package Design Brand imagery

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Context
For more than 3 years, Pambac’s flour volumes had been constantly decreasing due to the limited production
capacity, the irrelevance of its brand positioning and the aggressive marketing activities performed by all other
local producers.

After integrating a new and more productive mill facility, the company decided to gain a strong position on the
market with an aim of becoming number 3 among top producers in just a 2 years time. The strategy to be
approached was building a new portfolio brand, based on a coherent platform, capable of rapidly generating
sales volume.

Challenge
With the support of Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, Pambac commissioned BrandTailors to create a new
flour brand, meaning to position it on a relevant consumer need, to name it and afterwards, to generate a
design concept to be implemented both at the visual identity level and at the package design one.

For BrandTailors this task was a tremendous challenge as the flour market was a profoundly commoditized one,
the consumer having no emotional bond with the product category in itself. Though flour was a “rich” product
in terms of functional attributes and benefits, due to the unsophisticated approach of communication efforts in
this category, consumers weren’t yet educated in the sprit of emotional motivation and needed a brand they
could respond to.

Solution
Following an extensive screening of the competition and an objective look / curious eye into consumers minds,

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BrandTailors came up with a fresh and valuable insight: “if housewives have a good experience with a flour brand
when preparing the Romanian traditional cake “cozonac”, then this would be the brand of choice for any kind of
food or desserts they prepare”

From that point the new brand was to become “the expert” flour as the product’s qualities would qualify it for
the Romanian national cake “cozonac” preparation.

As Romania’s national cake, for Romanian housewives “cozonacul” represents something to be proud of.
Romanian tradition is to share this cake not only with your family but also with people who are not necessarily
your relatives, people who judge your cooking skills depending on the taste of your cake is and on its appetizing
looks. In short, if your “cozonac” is perfect it means you are an excellent cook.

Therefore, Romanian housewives pay a lot of attention when choosing the ingredients, but mostly to the
preparation process in itself. The perfect “cozonac” means mixing the right ingredients to get the tastiest filling
(cocoa, sugar, nuts, raisins, poppy seeds - at your choice), adding secret spices to get the most special aroma
(lemon peel, rum, vanilla etc.) and using the best flour to get the dough to rise as much as possible.

If the filling ingredients and chosen spices vary from one region to another and from one housewife to another,
the high rising dough is a must. You share your “cozonac” with the others, only if you are proud of the end
product, which means you consider your cake has rised high enough. In short, the higher the “cozonac” has
rised, the better the cook!

To position the new brand as “the expert” in “cozonac” preparation, the product benefit chosen to be
dramatized was the unbelievable rise of your cake. BrandTailors bet all the money on the “unbelievable rise”
benefit as it was an indisputable promise rooted in a fundamental product attribute: “the flour’s power to rise”;
this is basically a physical capability of the product, measured in research laboratories by flour specialists and it
is used to divide the product in different categories.

The brand’s promise to consumers, thus came naturally: “Never stops rising!”. As for the brand name,
BrandTailors got the inspiration from the very core ingredient of the product: the grains.

Thus, Grania came to life in a remarkable design execution inspired by the authenticity of “cozonac” making
process. The Romanian cloth napkin used to cover the dough was the richest in associations symbol that could
be used for a flour brand visual identity and package design.

Results
In just 2 years from launch, based on an original and inspired platform, Grania reached 3rd position on market
in terms of volume, which concluded into a similar 3rd position for Pambac among top flour producers.

Follow-up
Due to the success of the brand platform and package design concept, BrandTailors was given the opportunity
to continue its work while the product portfolio further developed. In 2006 BrandTailors developed a brand
architecture system, allowing Grania to broaden its flour offering and to extend on other product categories.

Second flour SKU dedicated to “cookie” preparation became the best performing secondary SKU out of the
entire competition in just 6 months from introduction.

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2007. Grania challenged the semolina flour market.

Contribution
Brand strategy and naming - Beatrice Daniş
Project management - Roxana Iancu
Graphic concept and development - Janos Kurko
Image retouching and printing pre-production - Mircea Brătianu

Project implementation started in July 2005.

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