Nii Bar

Agency: BASIC
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: Nii Foods
Location: San Diego, CA, USA
Packaging Contents: Health Food Bar
Packaging Materials: Paper

Nii is a health foods brand that was founded in 2013 with the mission of empowering and facilitating a healthy and active lifestyle through the creation of the purest, healthiest, and most vibrant foods on the market. Their first product to market was the Nii Bar, the most nutrient-dense organic food bar available today.

Even though Nii had a unique product, they were launching into a highly competitive and saturated market, and would need to develop a distinct voice and story in order to stand out from the countless other bars on the shelves. So Nii looked to BASIC to build a cohesive brand strategy and identity system that would encourage an on-the-go audience to consider buying a new bar.

From brand messaging to visual design and supporting content production, we created a platform that was inspired by Nii’s commitment to creating the purest, healthiest, most vibrant foods and it’s alignment with the audience’s desires.

We started by immersing ourselves in the world of health food and nutrition bars, digging up all the consumer and market research we could find, conducting interviews, and spending some time in various national and local retailers so we could study Nii Bar’s competitors first hand. From our research we found that the main purchasers of nutrition bars were women between the ages of 18-34.

This target expressed a deep desire for brands that spoke to the fact that women are multi layered and play a host of roles in their daily lives, balancing successful careers, strong families and personal activities. On top of that they were looking for products and communication that could provide them with the needed support while taking on their dreams.

Based on our understanding of the audience and what they were looking for, we positioned the bars around a centralized driver and brand mantra called, “Own the Day.” The idea was that these organic bars, free of harmful ingredients, give you the fuel to power through the day; adding a sense of control and empowerment… a sentiment that resonated with our target audience. The simple, yet powerful message was carefully woven into every fiber of the brands ecosystem.

The proactive and encouraging attitude of Own The Day was carried through the visual design. Influencing the bright color palette and playful typography, each element of the identity was designed to work in harmony, collectively presenting a fun, playful, and confident look and feel.

What’s Unique?
While most bar brands use muted colors or complex graphics, we opted for a simple and straight-forward design language that utilizes a bright palette and a bold logo mark. The final logo mark was made to be playful and organic in structure. Instead of using whitty copy and product names on the front of the packaging, we opted to highlight the key ingredients and benefits.