Our task was to develop a brand positioning and identity for the company’s new venture: the premium home appliance brand Benoit.
Brand architecture
The brand specializes in manufacturing three products:
Wine coolers. A product with a large market. Coolers keep various types of wine at the right temperature, have a setting allowing wine to be cooled before it is served, and include chambers that can be set to different temperatures.
Fur refrigerators. These are no longer manufactured at scale anywhere in Russia. They enable fur to be kept for longer and preserve its softness and sheen.
Humidors for cigars. There are not many automatic humidors on the market. They control humidity and temperature to stop cigars drying out and rotting.
These products all have different audiences. Wine coolers have the broadest audience, while humidors have the narrowest. Refrigerators for fur coats have a mostly female audience, while cigars have a largely male audience. The brand’s focus is on correct storage and refinement in consumption, and the brand positions itself closer to traditional opulence than to contemporary luxe.
Positioning
The brand’s first factory was established in the late 19th century. After the Russian revolution, it was taken over by Nikolai Benoit, inventor of devices for artillery sound ranging and nephew of the well-known artist and key figure in Russia’s early 20th-century World of Art movement Alexander Benoit.
According to family legend, Nikolai had exceptionally keen hearing thanks to his mother, a pianist. When, during his artillery training, he had the idea of determining an enemy’s position from the sound of their guns, he immediately knew how this idea could be put into practice.
We feel the story of Nikolai Benoit captures the brand’s ideology, which centers around technologies inspired by art and related to nobility and high culture. We formulated the brand’s positioning, and then moved on to the design, using the slogan:
We took the brand positioning and an understanding of the target audience as the starting point for the design concept. Along with the inspiring tale of a noble family, we had a real-life crest – but our research showed that the brand’s target audience is relatively restrained and believes that demonstrations of wealth and privilege are in poor taste. We therefore decided not to use crests or monograms, instead presenting lifestyle as a frame which frames life itself.
Visual identity concept
The concept is based around the idea of a frame which acts as a portal to the world of art. When we look at a work of art, we rarely notice the frame. Frames are designed to complement the artwork rather than drown it out. The frame separates the image from the space around it, and focuses attention on what is happening inside it.
Jacob Jordaens, The Bean King
An austere, metallic frame, with no gold or monograms, symbolizes cold, high technology, and modernity.
The calligraphic font harks back to a time when people wrote using quill pens. This font creates an interesting contrast with the frame: the historical and hand-made versus the cold and contemporary.
We worked with a calligrapher to design the handwriting font, and also created a set of numbers for layout purposes.
The logo continued the serious, high-tech feel, but with added elegance thanks to its subtle elements and light serifs. We took into account the fact that the logo was going to be cut out of metal.
Each of the company’s areas of focus was given its own color. The overall Benoit brand is royal blue, like the Benoit family crest. The humidors are a warm, sandy shade, the wine coolers are the color of claret, and the fur refrigerators are a cool gray.
In the second half of this case study, we will discuss how we developed and implemented a communication strategy, worked with the brand ambassador, and designed landing pages for the brand’s products.
Art Director — Pavel Konyukov
Designers — Anastasia Bazylnikova, Nika Toroptsova, Maria Troitskaya
Strategist — Olga Yakushenko
Managers — Alina Vikhareva, Marina Girich
Curator — Natalya Epifanova
