Montezuma’s Chocolates was born out of its founders, Helen and Simon’s love affair with Latin America and the extraordinary chocolate they found on their travels there. Since setting up shop in Brighton to make their own handmade chocolates in a multitude of flavours, using only ethically sourced ingredients, their business had grown organically. With increased investment and an ambitious plan for growth beyond their own stores, they came to us to re-focus the brand’s purpose and re-think its creative platform and visual identity on pack to attract a more urban ethical consumer
Through consumer research and working with the team at Montezuma’s our purpose became ‘inviting consumers to discover extraordinary chocolate flavours crafted with creativity and flair’ and our creative platform ‘Welcome to a World of Endless Discovery’; full of inviting exploration, hidden depths and wonderful surprises.
For our core brand icon, we broke the Montezuma’s M out of the ubiquitous star that it sat in, boiling down and sharpening it in order to make it the instantly recognisable star of the show. More than just ‘M’ for Montezuma’s, it is a portal through which to explore a fantastical world of flavours and much, much more; eclectic, hand drawn illustrations allude to the crafted way we make our chocolate, whilst photographic elements keep things real and communicate our integrity in sourcing ingredients, with each individual element telling a different part of the Montezuma’s story, all with a very British twinkle in the eye!
Our unique wordmark is designed to reflect the sharp edges within the brand icon, whilst a six-pointed star in place of the apostrophe in Montezuma’s is a reassuring nod to the old brand identity. This visual link allows a flexible approach to the brand assets whilst maintaining a cohesive identity.
The central theme of discovery and variety is dramatically brought to life on pack through individual flavours having their own ‘M’ icon. Within each icon, the illustrations and colourways shift and change to tell the story of the flavour and bring to life quirky product names such as ‘Nutterscotch’, ‘Like No Udder’ and ‘Smooth Operator’. These are executed in a bespoke ‘Montezuma’s Sans’ typeface created to optimise legibility, whilst reflecting the hand drawn approach within the illustrations.
The result is a versatile and infinitely adaptable branding system that future proofs Montezuma’s ever-expanding product range and informs everything from Instagram to the Montezuma’s stores.
Since launching in April 2020, the redesign has received extremely positive feedback from consumers via social media and has directly led to increased store listings, including more lines being added in John Lewis Partnership.
An important consideration was to ensure that our new packaging designs reflected the ethical and sustainable ethos behind the brand. Using our ‘Conscious Design’ process we specified eco-friendly packaging across their entire range, making them the first British brand in the premium segment to do so.
Working together we swapped globally based suppliers for ones within Europe and our cartons were created from FSC board with aqueous varnishes and glues, with no foiling and common finishes to avoid excess die creation. Inside, the bars have moved from a standard triplex plastic-based flow wrap material to being wrapped in fully recyclable EcoFlexi, a 100% paper based material. Our giftboxes now use ‘smart’ creative cutter guides to enable a glueless, folding box construction with a removable sleeve, to maximise recyclability. These and other measures, mean that 100% of the newly packaged range for Montezuma’s is now either recyclable, compostable or biodegradable. Even their old packaging has been repurposed by shredding it & using it to protect the contents of their gift boxes.
“We’re absolutely delighted with the new brand identity and packaging that Butterfly Cannon have created for us. It has given the brand a new lease of life and the response has been incredibly positive from both the trade and consumers. The design is bright, bold and quirky, yet still premium, reflecting the brand perfectly.” Debbie Epstein, Marketing Director for Montezuma’s
Source: Butterfly Cannon
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