Aria Foods — Full rebrand + 2.4x engagement
Aria had a great product in packaging that looked like everyone else's. A full identity rebuild and a shift in social strategy took engagement up 2.4x and won shelf space in two national chains.
Where they were when we started.
Aria makes small-batch regional spice blends, and blind taste tests put them ahead of every competitor in their category. On shelf, nobody could tell them apart. Their packaging used the same warm-earth palette, the same script typeface and the same photography style as the four brands sitting next to them.
Two national retail buyers had passed, both citing the same reason: the brand didn't look like it would move on its own.
- Visually indistinguishable from four direct shelf competitors
- Two national listings declined on brand presentation
- Social engagement at 0.7%, well below category average
- No usable brand guidelines — every asset built from scratch
What we actually did.
Find the position before the pixels
Three weeks of research — retailer interviews, shelf audits in eleven stores, and conversations with forty existing customers. The finding that shaped everything: Aria's customers didn't buy them for authenticity, which was what the brand shouted. They bought them because the blends made weeknight cooking faster.
Build a system that stands out on shelf
We moved away from the category's warm earth tones entirely, to a high-contrast palette anchored on a deep ink base with a single saturated accent per blend. A geometric wordmark replaced the script. On a shelf audit mock-up, the new packs were identifiable from four metres — the old ones from under one.
Rebuild social around the real reason people buy
The content pivoted from heritage storytelling to fast weeknight cooking. Short-form video showing a full dish in under sixty seconds became the core format, produced in batches of twelve per shoot day.
The research changed the brief. We came in expecting to make the heritage story look better, and left knowing the heritage story was the problem.
What changed.
Both national buyers who had previously declined came back within a quarter of the relaunch, and both listed. Engagement across social rose 2.4x on roughly the same posting volume, driven almost entirely by the shift to short-form video.
“Their SEO and content strategy put us on page one for our biggest keywords. Best agency decision we've made.”
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