Swedish M.W.A (milk with attitude)

Born in Sweden and made from peas, Sproud were taking the alternative milk category by storm. With a product that’s tastier, healthier and more sustainable than all of their competitors, the only thing holding this challenger back from total world domination was their brand.

With so much to shout about, Sproud were struggling to identify their core value proposition, losing cut through as they tried to push multiple brand messages simultaneously. We needed to take a step back and define what truly made them different.

On the way in, our intuition told us Sproud’s pea power could be a problem. Would consumers think the milk is green? It’s one thing to have peas in a plant-based burger, but do they really want peas on their cereal? Surely not.

We were wrong.

Following our collaborative workshopping process and using the research to craft our target customer persona, the next step was differentiation. In a crowded sector boasting brand behemoths like Oatly, owning something and standing out was going to be crucial. And as we were creating a global brand identity, we needed to factor in multiple markets, from the US and Canada, to Sweden and the UK.

Already known by those in the know as ‘the black and white brand with the stripes’, we doubled down on our mono identity, shunning pastel colours, naive illustrations and that self-aware and playful tone of voice so masterfully executed by Oatly and poorly replicated by all the rest. We saw an opportunity to be more than an alternative milk. To become an alternative movement.

Rebelling against dairy and embracing the pea as our punk ingredient, we created a verbal and visual brand identity that positioned Sproud as ‘The alternative’. Wearing our alternative label with pride and revelling in being deliciously different, from here we were able to create our brand proposition of ‘Tasty as ***k’, actually referring to ‘Tasty as milk’

This attention-grabbing statement perfectly encapsulates Sproud’s rebellious spirit, while also communicating its core USP – the taste. And from here, we were able to build a language system to communicate each of our brand benefits in a way that’s straight-up, instantly recognisable and distinctly Sproud, including ‘**k, that’s sustainable’, ‘***k, that’s healthy’, ‘***k, that’s made from peas’ and beyond.