Woolah
Brand Positioning, Logo, Packaging & Website
Steeped in strategy
In 2023, we collaborated with Woolah - a first-of-its-kind bagless tea-dip brand from Assam. They use superior quality tea leaves, produced through a sustainable process without any microplastics, that is good for the consumer as well as the planet, while also fairly compensating the labour & local community working on its estates.
But the challenge for Openhouse was to translate these brand virtues into a tangible benefit for the customer. Starting with a fitting brand positioning would help Woolah achieve this result. Our research and intuition pointed towards one observation - nourishment. Which was reinforced by a behaviour of the product - the elegant flourishing of its TrueDip, a bagless tea dip, in a cup of hot water. This similarity inspired us to first arrive at an internal positioning of ‘Nourish to Flourish’, which on further exploration of design possibilities morphed into a more expressive phrase - ‘Bloom Where You Are’. It was younger, expressive, assertive - quite like the audience we intended to reach, an audience that actively seeked wellness & invested in it.
Subsequently, ‘blooming’ and ‘flourishing’ became the core inspiration behind the vibrant logo design, for form as well as colour. We used a lower case, rounded font to cue approachability in an otherwise formal and mature category. For the logo, we looked to a fully bloomed Woolah TrueDip placed in a cup. This was depicted in the letter ‘o,’ when the cup is viewed from a top angle.
‘Bloom Where You Are’ also became our inspiration for the packaging. To distinguish each of Woolah’s 3 main variants from the other, we picked colours and names that are reminiscent of the tea and its benefits - vitality, health, and energy. For example, Mornings Like This - a green tea evoked brightness & energy with its sunrise orange pack and the sharp form of a yellow daisy bloom. The forms of the tea blooms were kept dynamic and would keep changing to cue different flavours and varieties of tea. For the other 4 variants, we let the ingredients lead the way for names and colour choice - a spring colours palette full of greens, yellows, and mild oranges. This way, each variant also got its own distinct identity on the pack.
It is in the nature of tea to be surrounded by rituals. From intimate ‘me-time’ routines to full-blown ceremonies, the tea ritual is a custom shared by many cultures. We wanted Woolah to have its own ritual as well. As an offshoot of the ‘Bloom Where You Are’ positioning, a ritual that would help customers understand how to consume our tea because it’s different from your regular tea bag. Thus came to life ‘Dip-Bloom-Sip’ - a ritual that helps you center yourself as well as shines a spotlight on the Woolah TrueDip. This ritual was devised as an extension of the strategy for social media & on-ground trials, so that customers could see the product in action and get their foot in the door to Woolah’s philosophy.
