How to transcend a family-run start-up to a regional leader?

Jpd team performed an in-depth analysis of consumer purchase behaviour traits to understand the key needs and complaints among the target audience of young professionals, mothers and teens. The research consisted of mystery shopping, survey analysis, desktop research, along with client interviews, which provided extensive knowledge within the FMCG sector. Jpd team identified several challenges, such as “lack of time to spend with the family”,“difficulty of puff pastry preparation yet missing homemade flavours” and“running out of ideas for quick snacks for quests and visitors”. Combining them with the opportunities and brand strengths of family-owned business and quality ingredients exclusively brought to consumers in GCC, the strategy team proposed brand positioning “Your Home Chef”, which centred around cherishing family moments, while not compromising on flavour and quality of family meals and snacks, which was welcomed by the client and rolled out across all brand communication

Relying on the brand promise, the Jpd team saw an opportunity to create a brand character, Feli, your home chef and a best friend in the kitchen. Having a brand mascot opened various opportunities to engage with mothers, as well as kids, who quite often help during the decision-making process at the store, based on the research performed earlier by the Jpd strategy team. Relying on human psychology, where our brains are tuned to find faces so well, having Feli the Chef on the brand packaging, ensured attracting consumer’s eye to the new products, where the bright colour of red and kitchen-feel photography was aiming to spark appetite and interest among passing by buyers. To address the objective of future product line expansion and keeping the brand identity flexible, the Jpd team offered adaptable look & feel elements, with colour coding reflecting each product range, along with patterns, that would suggest the cuisine of a particular range: Arabic, Healthy range, or Kids. Tuning the visual language down, the design team ensured to keep Feli as the key brand recall character, which ensured brand consistency even among the most diverse product range.

Upon brand launch, Feli’s Kitchen quickly gained success in the UAE market, with its products represented by one of the UAE’s largest supermarket chains,Carrefour, capturing30% of the retail market. Currently, Feli’s Kitchen owns25% of its product segment.

Due to great success in the UAE, the client decided to capitalize on the opportunity and launched across several markets within the same year, which exceeded the original business plan. Currently, Feli’s Kitchen products can be found in Bahrain,Oman, Qatar and UAE. In the other markets, Feli’s Kitchen leads the way by introducing this product segment. Feli’s Kitchen is now planning to expand toSaudi Arabia and Eastern Europe.