Schedrye – bread traditions in a modern home
“Schedrye” crispbread, produced by a company called “Orient Products”, has been on the market for some time, even gaining a loyal consumer base. In 2017, however, “Orient Products” was acquired by the Lantmännen Group, the manufacturer of Finn Crisp crispbread.
After auditing the brand portfolio of the joint venture, it was decided that the “Schedrye” brand lacked a clear role in the company’s portfolio and thus was in need of a distinct market positioning. Until then, the brand lacked uniqueness and competitiveness, and the packaging design was due for an update.
The task for Mildberry was to analyse the current market situation in the crispbread segment, to develop the brand platform, as well as to update the design of the brand and packaging according to new brand values.
Schedrye – Strategy
Crispbread has been predominantly placed in the snacks category, which consists of a variety of products like potato chips or fruit. During a situational analysis conducted by Mildberry, it was found that crispbread is more viewed as a healthier alternative to bread rather than a snack, due to consumers becoming more conscious of health benefits and risks. This moved us towards the new market positioning of Schedrye. On the one hand, bread is an instrumental part of the Russian tradition that is ingrained in the culture and is linked to concepts like ‘home’, ‘family’ and ‘comfort’, which has enormous scope for marketing communication. On the other hand, none of the competitors of Schedrye is positioning themselves this way in the same pricing segment.
After deciding on positioning, we formulated the new essence of Schedrye – “Bread traditions in a modern and healthy format for every day”. Suggested values organically elaborated on the existing brand image and expanded on different possibilities of its consumption, which made the product a part of the home and everyday routine.
The brand architecture has been also changed during the project. We systematized the current product portfolio: it now consists of two basic product categories of think and thick crispbread; as well as a new product category was developed that consists of exotically flavored crispbread “Schedrye Exclusive” – this will keep the brand in the market of snacks, while consumers will be able to experiment with new flavors.
Schedrye in the new design
The visual identity development has solved a few problems: it was crucial to update the design yet to keep it recognizable by loyal consumers, but at the same time to convey the new positioning and propose a design system for segmenting the product portfolio. The new design system allowed to expand on each product category, simplify the navigation of flavors, and save the brand continuity.
The different situations of consumption were placed as the foundation for the package design concept, with crispbread itself being always at the forefront of the composition. While a deliberate nonchalance of the design adds simplicity and authenticity of everyday situations, each of the crispbread representations has a unique ingredient that shows the different ways the product can be consumed in. In terms of the ingredients, they strategically differed according to the product: for thick Schedrye, common ingredients were used; thin Schedrye were incorporated with more exquisite ingredients such as salmon or avocado; while “Schedrye Exclusive” utilized ingredients in accordance with its unique flavoring.
Packaging has always been the main and most used point of contact between the brand and the consumer and thus, its communication potential shouldn’t be underestimated. Mildberry developed a system of emotional slogans and messages, which express product properties in a simple but interesting way and also expand on the core values of the brand Schedrye.