Rebon: a brand for a product the customer does not understand
How to design a brand and a store for domestic water filtration so a layperson grasps what they are buying. From the logotype through product visuals to the design of the whole site.
Opinion · Branding and expansion
A Brand That Can Take Several Markets
Daniel Hauser· 4 min read
Expanding into another country is usually planned as a commercial step. Website language, shipping, prices, campaigns. The brand does not appear in that plan, because the assumption is that it will simply be translated. And that is exactly where it breaks first.
What breaks first
- A flavour name translated literally. What sounds appetising at home sounds like a chemical description somewhere else, or like nothing at all.
- A claim you are not allowed to print in another country. What is required and what is forbidden differs between markets, and a design that did not plan for it has to be redone rather than topped up.
- A photograph that does not fit. Food, settings and people on packaging carry a piece of culture. In a new country they can feel foreign without anyone being able to say why.
- Quantities and formats. A different standard pack means a different aspect ratio and different room for text, so the composition falls apart.
The constant core and what bends
A brand that can take several markets keeps two layers clearly apart. One never changes, the other always does. When that line is not written down, someone different decides it in every country, and by the third market nobody can tell it is one brand.
- Never changes: the mark, the colour system, the silhouette of the pack, the typography and the tone. That is what you are recognised by on a shelf and in a thumbnail.
- Always changes: language, flavour names, claims, mandatory text, weights and formats.
- Decided case by case: photography and illustration. Sometimes they travel unchanged, sometimes a different set is needed.
One brand across several markets. Not eight brands that resemble each other.
Mandatory text is not a detail for the end
The most common practical problem we see is room. Mandatory information differs between countries in how much there is and in how many languages it has to appear. When a design was made for one market, the back of the pack usually has just enough space, and once more languages arrive either the type shrinks below legibility or the whole back has to be rebuilt.
The specific obligations differ by country and by category, so check them with the producer or a lawyer. From a design point of view one thing matters: assume there will be more text than today's market needs. Spare room on the back is cheaper than a second round of pre-press.
Language on a pack is not translation
A customer spots a translated claim immediately, even when they cannot name what is wrong. Translation carries words but not rhythm, and not what sounds self-evident in that country. For a brand name and a claim it pays to write again rather than translate, and to have someone who really speaks the language read it.
That is precisely the part that cannot be left to a machine. We wrote about it in Handmade vs AI-Perfect: routine yes, the thing you are recognised by no.
The same logic as in campaigns
On the advertising side this has been settled for years and it lands in the same place: one skeleton for every market, and different only what the market dictates. We cover it in One campaign structure for every market, and what such an expansion looks like in practice is on campaign management at Independency.
It is the same idea carried over to packaging. Keep the same what you are recognised by. Let differ what the market forces.
What this means for a brief
- Tell the studio in advance where you are heading, even if it is two years away. It changes the layout of the back of the pack and often the choice of photography.
- Ask for what does not change to be written down. A single page is enough and saves arguing at every new market.
- Plan spare room for text. Not because you need it today.
- Test a new market as a thumbnail and in the hand. Both have to look like your brand.
In short
Expansion does not fail because a website cannot be translated. It fails because the brand bends everywhere nobody thought about it. Separate the core from the wrapping in advance, and the second and third market become two weeks of work rather than a new brief.
