Sapp

We helped a new-to-market birch water brand, Birch Slap their competitors off the shelf.

Services

Brand Voice & Identity, Business Name, Social Media, Web Copy, Web Design, Marketing Collateral

The Backstory

Sapp came to us as a new-to-market craft water that needed to cannonball successfully into an oversaturated beverage market. (Ten points for spotting the two ‘water’ jokes in that first sentence.) Since most people have not heard of birch water, our job in this project was to educate consumers while also entertaining. We needed to create the right Brand Voice & Identity that would speak to their earthy, savvy, health-conscious audience and tap into their deeper beliefs, hopes, and wishes—both verbally and visually.

Designed to be viscerally memorable and stand out from the overwhelming lineup of ‘health’ beverages (specifically in the water category), this project featured hilarious collateral full of tree jokes, a birch slap or two, and a newly-established authority via confident playfulness. The strategically-witty foundation helped Sapp eventually get acquired, which was a major business goal and, yes—you guessed it—witnessing the power of humor made us feel incredibly sappy.

Tagline

We created their tagline and core message of “Branch out,”  to speak to how this beverage empowers and emboldens the user to branch out (tree joke)…in their health (exploring new nutrient-dense beverages) and their world (the water appeals to adventurous, outdoorsy folks). Aside from tasting great and having ingredient integrity, we knew it would be critical to weave in an aspirational element to the brand in order to create an emotional connection for the consumer; and make them think, “coconut water, who?”

Ads

For the ad campaign, we placed Sapp’s differentiators at the center of each asset—to cast them as the hero of the water-world compared to their competitors. We leveraged an offbeat, wry, conversational tone and an earthy, illustrative design style to help the ads go down smooth with the target audience.

Marketing Collateral

For regional, in-store promotions, we created the signage and marketing leave-behind that would draw in shoppers, elicit smiles, and stir up intrigue. And as a bonus, that gorgeous hand model in the product photography is none other than one of our founders, Allie. If you’re asking yourself, “What can’t they do?” the only answer to that is, create boring branding.

“Obedient created a tone of voice for our brand that was spot on (they called it ‘Matter-of-fact funny meets clever’) and gave us key language we needed to really get our unique message across. Safe to say we’re big fans of everything they came up for us.”

—John Kavchak, Co-Founder & CEO of SAPP

PUT SOME MORE DIP ON YOUR CHIP.
Back to the trophy case.