Hlebny Dom redesign

Design: DS1
Location: Russia
Project Type: Produced
Product Launch Location: Russia
Packaging Contents: Bread
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Plastic

From heart to heart with warm feelings. Upgrading communication strategy and redesign of Hlebny Dom.

Hlebny Dom is a brand based on longstanding traditions of bakery and consumers’ confidence. Being a leader in the market of industrial bread, the brand has long ago become a part of family breakfasts, lunches and dinners for big-city residents.

But even big brands sometimes need upgrading to keep pace with consumers. In 2018, communication strategy of Hlebny Dom changed revealing important social problem – we live in the days when constant busyness and virtual reality more and more often replace live communication. Increasing pace of life has already affected the group which is seemingly the most resistant to this phenomenon – hospitable and intelligent family people. We feel like we are constantly missing something. People in big cities are always faced with a sense of guilty – we missed our child’s school performance, we didn’t find time to meet with our old friends. In these conditions, it is necessary to produce and transmit warm feelings to ensure that connections remain strong. Bread perfectly plays this role, so that is what Hlebny Dom brand team made emphasis on.

In connection with it, rebranding of the loaf line was initiated. Existing package design didn’t reflect the main values and desired emotional perception of the brand and communication – Hlebny Dom transfers warm feelings from person to person. For the rebranding implementation, we have selected the agencies with previous experience of work with the brand and having good feeling of its focus. As far as DS1 agency has been specializing in FMCG products for over seven years and has already implemented several successful projects in cooperation with Fazer company (to whom brand Hlebny Dom belongs) it was included in this list among others. Within the rebranding, we had to keep the design continuity while increasing emotional involvement of consumers. To achieve this, we had to create package design concept which will remind about bread primacy and its value in consumers’ life.

Before starting the concept creation, DS1 agency carried out some interviews with buyers of loaves in large super and hypermarkets. Together with the results of desk analytics, it allowed us to highlight the main direction for participation in the tender – bread is created for a family and loved by it. A key point was the specifics of target audience – they don’t embrace experiments, they often switch between the main competitors who correspond with “family” image. Package had to reflect values of a modern family, to be clear and attractive.

A consumer testing was carried out to define the concept. According to its results, one of DS1’s concepts demonstrated the highest result in the categories important for the brand – respondents described it as “causing interest one”, “family-oriented, and “actual”. Votes of consumers allowed implementing the fourth concept of DS1 agency.

According to the idea developed in agency’s concept, one big family is demonstrated on Hlebny Dom loaf package. They are happy people who really love and care about each other. All generations of the family are united by common values and traditions. The package shows one of the family’s weekend – they decided to get together in their country house. We can see three meals – breakfast, lunch and dinner – while none of them goes without Hlebny Dom loaf.

It was decided to refuse from perfect models, but instead – to show real personalities. In connection with it, photo shoot was arranged and carried out. Shooting took place in a country house in Leningrad region.
The result can be seen on the package – now it contains photos of the family where recognizable elements of current design are kept: bright strips that would help to find the product on a shop shelf also after the redesign. Additionally, care and family traditions are reflected on the package by emotional mark – “With warm feelings!”. Front side of the package has become a large brand area; it can be easily adapted to any product items of the brand. A great attention was paid to the hierarchy in the design – Hlebny Dom logo had to remain noticeable, but not to draw all the attention to itself.

THE CLIENT’S COMMENT
One of our most important findings in this project is a two-sided brand block. Its main advantage on a shop shelf is that we don’t depend on the layout option – both vertically/horizontally and even if customers have turned the product over during studying the range of products – design and information is duplicated on the reverse side.

THE DESIGNER’S COMMENT
Black and white photos together with matrix-like layout of the loaves allow to stand out on a shelf creating a noticeable monochrome block among color diversity; the concept is quite simple, but it corresponds with the brand character. After producing test packages and trying them on the shelf, we made sure that our solution works, and the product legend turned into a real story and actually we got a photo album of a happy family.
The result of rebranding helped to refresh and to update the brand within the current positioning and to keep recognizable elements of the current package.