building a plant protein brand
Brand positioning, design system, packaging design, brand film and full stack marketing
During late '21- and '22 I was involved with Mikuna Foods. Mikuna is a vegan superfood brand that was the sole importer of Chocho, a plant protein made from native South American Lupins from The Andes Mountains. I started out as an Advisor, moved on to a freelance Creative Director and then was hired full time as their Chief Brand Officer.
Creating velocity at retail while building a tiny but mighty brand.
As a challenger brand in every sense Mikuna faced many headwinds: an ingredient that was unknown to nearly all American consumers from a small brand that was a complete unheard of with very little distribution at retail.
I was originally asked to assess the initial brand positioning and visual identity. While the original was competent, it lacked any character or told any product or brand story. Mikuna also had some great brand ambassadors (who were also investors) who were being under used.
From when I was first engaged to the end of my tenure, the brand went from a handful of retailers and DTC to being available in thousands of doors nationwide via premium grocery store chains and also rapidly increasing our sales and impact.
Packaging
After a small brand exercise we redesigned our packaging range and simplified and design language to allow consumers to easily identify their favorite flavor while also trying to tell a better story about our mission and providence.
Brand Building
As a scrappy startup we were always operating at 'full impact' mode so this brand guideline document was built by me and the creative/marketing group after Mikuna had funding issues and some of left and others were laid off.
Email Marketing
We complete re-engineered an advanced customer lifecycle email program and also redesigned our website. What follows is a sample of the 72 emails that were triggered and sent by certain customer events or lack of activity / engagement.
Mick Fanning mini Campaign
As a three time World Champion surfer Mick knows a thing or two about athletic performance. Working with his friend and photographer Corey Wilson we created this hero brand piece on a insanely small budget.
