Minute Maid – The Creation of a Coherent Global Master Brand

Creative Agency: Taxi Studio
Marketing Assistant: Joshua Matthews
Creative Director: Ryan Wills
Associate Creative Director: Stu Tallis
Senior Creative: Charlie Tallis
Senior Visualiser: James Gilmore
Creative Strategist: Ellie Dean
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: Coca-Cola
Location: Bristol, England
Packaging Contents: Fruit Juice
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Cardboard
Printing Process: Digital Print

Thousands of juices united in one brand; how Coca-Cola’s global design team collaborated with Taxi Studio, and fought convention to give Minute Maid a brave new brand identity system.

A clear leader in a confused category: The Coca-Cola Company’s juice brand, Minute Maid, is the global No.1 umbrella brand for juice drinks.*

In general, the juice category is deeply complex, visually cluttered and confusing for consumers. And recently, rapidly changing consumer needs were causing an influx of innovations with new variants endlessly being added to portfolios. So, to ensure Minute Maid retained their #1 position, they needed to review how they organised and presented their portfolio. In 2014 it was decided to redesign the identity to enable the brand to have a design system that could unify the category and accommodate future growth.

Their previous Visual Identity System, developed in 2008, was ground breaking at the time, but was becoming more restrictive and less fit for purpose as the category and brand innovations expanded. With over 1000 products globally and a constant stream of juice innovations, despite growing market share, the core strength of Minute Maid’s brand was becoming diluted.

All of which lead to a brief to create synergy among a true global family; one ownable Masterbrand, instantly recognisable the world over.

A pioneering portfolio approach: Before we could get to work creatively, we needed an in-depth understanding of the Minute Maid brand, its market, and how people buy this particular type of product.

From the research groups we attended across the globe, we discovered a simple, but revolutionary, human truth: while there are countless juice drink products out there, there are only a small number of “need-states” that lead people to reach for juice.

In fact, we were able to narrow down to four clear areas, which we then applied to the entire Minute Maid portfolio, organising those thousand-plus products under these consumer-friendly platforms: Essentials, Refresh, Nutri and Delight.

Creating a true global family: With our portfolio strategy providing a new coherent framework, we turned to the brand itself. How could we build on existing equities to deliver all the strategic objectives in the brief for a Masterbrand that would be simple, iconic, natural and timeless?

Working in partnership with the global design team at Coca-Cola, we discovered the answer lay in the most ownable element on pack; the Minute Maid brandmark. The original brandmark story focused on the idea of dark fertile soil under a lush green horizon and a sun-drenched grove. Through the design process, we elevated this into something even more powerful; a simple yet distinctive and category-norm-defying chassis system with a fruit architecture that created a billboard effect at retail.

What makes it such a courageous challenger of convention? In a world where white is almost the obligatory background colour, our strong and unapologetic use of the Minute Maid black, creates a premium juice design with strong shelf presence turning it into something ‘table worthy’ at home.

To let each product proposition shine, our system is made of fixed, flexible and free areas, and our four portfolio platforms are colour-coded to guide consumers painlessly through to purchase. This has resulted in a future-proof system, designed to accommodate an ambitious innovation pipeline, one that allows for a healthy balance of consistency and flexibility to create clear differentiation between product propositions.

To ensure every on-pack element was world-class standard, we also developed exceptionally beautiful and realistic depictions of fruit that celebrate nature’s imperfections making them a whole lot juicier than the generic, hyper-real kind you often find on juice drink packaging.

With the new design set to roll out globally in 2017, it’s too soon to report on the impact on revenue or volume growth. But, based on the research we’ve done across four countries, we’re very optimistic.

Consumer testing in all markets gave our work a big thumbs-up on every count: better stand-out, increased desire to purchase, and better juice credentials versus Minute Maid’s current design.

Leading from the inside out: But this rebrand wasn’t just about leading externally, we also wanted to set the standard internally by creating beautiful brand standards for the new design.

These interactive, online guidelines didn’t just tell people how to use the new brand, it showed them by demonstrating the power, beauty and potential of the Masterbrand on every webpage. With the rollout, we’ve supported markets every step of the way through educational webinars and by providing a design council service to help solve market specific problems.

Typically Taxi Studio – work that works: All in all, we’d like to think it’s a typical Taxi tale. Building on a strong relationship, we’ve worked in a genuinely collaborative way with The Coca-Cola’s global design team and flexed our fearless creative muscles whilst retaining an unwavering commercial focus.

When Minute Maid called us in, they were already the global number 1 umbrella brand for juice drinks* in the world, by creating a true Masterbrand, we’ve helped them look – and behave – like the global market-leaders they are.