Branding is one of the more misunderstood design disciplines, but ask Nicola Massey what branding means to her and the answer is simple: it means everything.
Without it, there would be no Mrs Massey’s chutneys, no successful business supplying the country’s best-known food halls and delicatessens and certainly no hope of attracting the interest of premium supermarkets.
When branding expert Adrian Collins approached his friend Nicola Massey about creating a brand for her range of chutneys, there was barely even a business to create a brand for, just a fantastic selection of homemade sauces, which were obviously popular with consumers. ‘Branding has actually created the company,’ says Adrian Collins, Managing Director of Ziggurat Brands. ‘By giving it an identity we enabled Mrs Massey’s to exist.’
That view is shared by Nicola herself, who freely admits that unless she had been offered the opportunity by Collins she would never have taken her idea any further. ‘Without the branding I would never have expanded. It gave me the confidence to broaden my horizons and realise that I had a product worth shouting about.’
And shout about it they did. With Nicola’s own personality as their starting point, the Ziggurat Brands design team created a big, bold, loud and fun identity for the Mrs Massey’s brand that was soon grabbing the attention of major food buyers. ‘Of course the product has got to speak for itself and be so fantastic that people want to buy it again and again, but I know now that it’s also got to leap off the shelf or risk being ignored altogether,’ says Nicola. ‘Consumers don’t get to try food in store, so the packaging has to do the selling.’
Nicola sent her new range (whittled down to just eight of her most popular products) to buyers at Fortnum & Mason and Harvey Nichols, who both leapt at the chance to sell it in store. Once it had been spotted on the shelves of these prestigious food halls, other buyers began taking an interest, including the Conran shop, which now also stocks the range. Mrs Massey’s is also distributed nationwide via the company’s ecommerce site and Nicola now produces the own label chutneys for Fortum & Mason.
Having a branding partner has helped Nicola at every stage of her business development, from selecting the right number and type of products for the initial launch to how best to set out a stall for maximum impact. ‘Sometimes I look at individual jars and I think, it’s just a label,’ she says. ‘But then I look at my stall when it’s all set up, or I see the products next to others on the shelf and they look fantastic. I still do fairs and farmers markets and people say: “we never put our Mrs Massey’s in the cupboard”.’
Now, only four years since the creation of the Mrs Massey’s brand, Nicola and Ziggurat Brands are looking to take the business to the next level by attracting premium supermarkets. Nicola is also confident enough in the brand and in her own abilities to scale up production to begin presenting at trade shows. ‘It’s tempting to branch out into new product ranges, but for the time being I’d like to concentrate on what we do best: fantastic homemade chutneys and sauces that look great, and taste even better.’
Testament to the power of branding
Small-scale crisp maker, Jonathan Crisp, went from earning £350,000 to £1.5m in sales in two years after Ziggurat Brands helped it re-think its brand and re-focus its image. Jonathan Crisp says a new brand was critical for its crisps to take a bigger share of the market: 'The rebranding has given the company purpose and direction. We have become a real player in the market.'
Higgidy went from own-label pies produced by a husband and wife team, to the gourmet ready-to-eat section in 80 Sainsbury’s stores within three months. Camilla and James of Higgidy pies say Ziggurat brands helped them expand their business: 'Our new brand identity is already opening doors.'
