Strauss Group
Elite Collection: Designing a Super Premium Chocolate Experience for the Middle East Market
Project Included: Design Strategy, Packaging Design, Art Direction, Illustration Design
The Brief
In 2020, one of the the Middle East’s biggest food companies, Strauss Group, asked us to help them design a new range of super premium chocolate gift boxes which would be part of their 86 years old confectionary brand – ‘Elite’. The region was beginning to see significant growth in consumer demand for ‘chocolatier quality’ products, and also, an affordable and accessible way to buy and gift them. Our task was to create a visual design that would communicate the premium status and create a sense of ‘desire’ but in a way that fits with this extremely traditional and loved brand.
The Challenge
The Elite brand has an established and wide ranging product portfolio – all offered at every day affordable prices. Often described at the Cadbury’s of the Middle East, the brand is associated with quality, taste, friendliness and nostalgia. Our key challenges included finding a way to ‘elevate’ and ‘premium-ize’ the brand, in a manner that did not feel disconnected from their core familiar values that consumers have grown to love.
The Solution
Initially we conducted a thorough semiotic audit on both European and Middle Eastern markets which provided visual insights and provided a clear design strategy for the design phase. Capturing the right visual tone for the brand was going to be critical. Premium cues were achieved through a beautiful gold ‘art-deco’ motif which drew inspiration from the form of the chocolate pieces inside the box. This special pattern is combined with splashes of bold colour – creating the feeling of contemporary fun. Finally the name ‘Collection’ is displayed in an elegant, vertical orientation and is contained in a distinctive black graphic ‘sleeve’ which anchors the product descriptor and photography.
