Mumbai: Maharishi Ayurveda, a pioneer in Ayurveda that offers Ayurvedic solutions across wellness, consumption & personal care categories, has recently undergone a brand revamp exercise in partnership with Almond Branding that helped them refresh the brand to make it contemporary yet authentic.
Almond Branding helped in the end-to-end brand overhaul by drawing equity from the brand’s existing heritage in Ayurveda and aligning the values of the brand with the needs of today’s customers. The brand lacked uniformity in packaging design across its products on the shelves, hence Almond Branding recommended ‘Packaging Design Alignment’ as the first step towards the rebranding exercise.
Almond Branding crafted a strict ‘Visual Architecture’ to define the constant and variable elements of the design language. Also, colour coding was proposed for differentiation between categories where formats may be very similar. Considering the short attention spans of today’s consumers, a one liner benefit was added just after the Product Branding to quickly decode the offering. The more detailed benefit list was introduced further down into the hierarchy. A handmade paper textured background was imparted to the entire domestic herbal supplement range to connote the authenticity of Ayurveda. Additionally, smart visual assets like the Brand button, helped conjure the desired imagery.
Shashwat Das, Founder, Almond Branding said, “Ayurveda has always been intrinsic to Indian culture but has become far more relevant to consumer’s lives today. In the last decade or so, there has been an upheaval in the category. Maharishi Ayurveda has been a research-based organization using authentic ayurvedic formulations & methods to suit modern living conditions. Our brand immersion revealed that they looked at their offerings through windows of modern science to appreciate the holistic concepts that governed Ayurveda through centuries. Hence, our design solutions had to reflect the change from a dated brand to one that brings to life the values of authentic Ayurveda for a progressive lifestyle.”
Ramesh Yadav, Global Marketing Head, Maharishi Ayurveda Products said, “We wanted to re-look at our brand strategy that involved brand revamp and certain strategic priorities in terms of category choices with an objective of making Ayurveda relevant to today’s audience by listening to their needs and requirements. The idea was to reach out to those who are pre-disposed to natural, herbal and Ayurveda, however, may be fussy but are willing to explore the category/products that cater to their lifestyle-related health issues. Almond Branding helped us in the entire rebranding exercise from understanding the objectives to deriving meaningful insights. Distillation of research into one strong concept and designing strategy by Almond Branding were the most critical steps for making this happen. Coming up with packaging solutions which were aligned with the master brand philosophy yet contemporary was the most challenging part of the entire project which was tackled very well by team Almond.”
Maharishi Ayurveda has a large product portfolio and Almond Branding helped design a very contemporary look-and-feel by narrating the story of authentic Ayurveda practices and choicest natural ingredients through the overall design language of the brand. Amrit Kalash is the signature product of Maharishi Ayurveda, hence its packaging was made to look extra rich and exceptional, to command the premium price point and also make it worthy of the product itself. Generous use of gold and post-printing effects on the Packaging helped uplift the imagery.
Maharishi Ayurveda also has a strong presence in Europe with headquarters in Herkenbosch, Netherlands. MA’s international range consists of mostly certified natural cosmetics that use only organic ingredients. The range had to hence give a feeling of Purity For this range, Almond Branding proposed a pristine white and gold colour scheme to compete on shelves with the European natural/organic cosmetic counterparts. A wellness band with icons of natural goodness and overall wellbeing ran across this particular range and also housed the brand button.
Overall, through the brand revamp, the values of authentic Ayurveda for a progressive lifestyle have been brought to life across every product packaging of Maharishi Ayurveda.