Maqu

The promise of a nutri­tion­al­ly bet­ter and deli­cious snack shines through! Makuvara’s new snack Maqu, like its appear­ance and mes­sage design, is based on strong con­sumer under­stand­ing.

Towards good taste

Maqu snacks were born when Maku­vara Ltd want­ed to offer cus­tomers a nutri­tion­al­ly bet­ter snack choice instead of sug­ar treats. The com­pa­ny start­ed a thor­ough project to devel­op a snack that is com­pli­ant with Nordic nutri­tion­al rec­om­men­da­tions, deli­cious as well as easy and quick for an active per­son to use. Real fruits, milk pro­tein and soft fats in canola oil were select­ed as raw mate­ri­als. The result con­tains pro­tein, car­bo­hy­drates, fat and fibres as well as more than half of fruit in favourable pro­por­tions – but no added sug­ar or sweet­en­ers.

Maku­vara and Työ­maa stud­ied the snack mar­ket and con­sumer pref­er­ences in the main mar­ket in Fin­land and Swe­den. The data steered plan­ning towards the expec­ta­tions of con­sumers who appre­ci­ate health con­scious­ness, respon­si­bil­i­ty and espe­cial­ly good taste. Maqu was born.

Solu­tion

A joint brand work­shop fol­lowed the study phase and defined the main mes­sages and tar­get group more specif­i­cal­ly. The Maqu brand need­ed to be pos­i­tive, colour­ful and relaxed. After the frame­work defined in brand work­shop­ping, Työ­maa start­ed work on the new prod­uct and designed

• brand ele­ments
• com­mu­ni­ca­tion spear­heads
• tone and mes­sages
• graph­i­cal appear­ance and logo
• prod­uct name

In spring 2022, Maqu con­quered the shelves of Finnish shops and con­sumers, and no won­der: the brand image work­ing hand in hand with the prod­uct phi­los­o­phy is also a win­ner.

Side by side with colour­ful­ness and joy, the basic appear­ance of Maqu is clear and sim­ple: easy like the snack itself. The hand-drawn illus­tra­tions, fresh colours and relaxed lay­out of the appear­ance give the prod­ucts a straight­for­ward and famil­iar feel. Three alter­na­tive lay­outs were designed for the 150-gram pack­ages and their recep­tion was stud­ied with both Finnish and Swedish tar­get audi­ences. There were also three name sug­ges­tion for the prod­uct. The names of the three flavour vari­a­tions, Mer­ry­ber­ry, Kiwi­green and Man­gob­ee, com­mu­ni­cate cheer­ful­ness also inter­na­tion­al­ly.

More Maqu

The Maqu prod­uct fam­i­ly will expand in near future with new prod­ucts and their lay­out is already tak­ing shape on draw­ing boards at Työ­maa.

Do you need a spe­cial­ist for con­sumer prod­uct mar­ket­ing and pack­age design? Con­tact Jori!

Jori Nissi­nen, asi­akku­usjo­hta­ja
jori@tyomaa.com
p. 040 557 4006