Repositioning a purpose-driven brand by replacing caution with confidence
Client • Etepetete GmbH (D2C)
Year • 2024-2025
Role • Creative Director & Product Director
Scope • Brand Development & Repositioning, Content Creation, Packaging Design, UI/UX, Advertising
Team • 8 Crossfunctional (Product, Design, Copy, Social Media, Content)
Duration • 5 Months
Project Summary
Etepetete sources imperfect fruit and vegetables from European farmers and ships them to 20,000 subscribers through a D2C subscription model. Despite being the category pioneer, the brand had stopped converting relevance into growth, a result of misalignment between brand perception, pricing and its actual paying audience.
Diagnose
The brand was built for admirers, not for buyers. It spoke to a young activist audience, while its core customers were affluent, conscious consumers willing to pay a premium for credible sustainability.
Key Decisions
Repositioned the brand from "good waste" to "smarter consumption", shifting the narrative from moral sacrifice to premium quality and aligning the mission with the audience that actually pays.
Replaced a cautious, hiding, apologetic tone with bold, direct communication that owns the product's imperfection as a point of pride and involves the customer.
Rebuilt the visual identity from cool and muted to warm and inviting, using nature-led colour and higher-quality imagery to signal trust, the strongest purchase driver in food.
Restoring relevance and strategic clarity
The repositioning aligned brand perception, product value, and audience expectations evolving the brand from an admired mission to a preferred category choice. The result: a stronger foundation for growth and a clear identity as a high-quality, purpose-driven alternative rather than a niche activist product.
The repositioning measurably improved brand perception and brand health, shifting the brand from a niche sustainability initiative to a credible premium alternative for it’s core audience.
Built for buyers, the brand finally connected with an audience it tried to reach for years, waiting for etepetete to become a distinctive voice.
Brand relevance translated into performance efficiency
Following the repositioning, paid performance improved across upper and mid funnel campaigns at the same budget and on a seasonal comparison: CTR +24%, conversion +16%, CAC -12%. The strongest lever was breaking category convention: pattern-interrupting creative at the top of funnel, bold product-first messaging mid funnel, both outperforming prior creative. (Weekly budget €50k, channels Meta, Google, Pinterest). While performance was driven by cross-functional efforts, the brand update played a key role in improving message relevance and audience alignment.
Reengineering packaging design for cost and operational efficiency
As part of the rebrand, packaging was redesigned for both brand consistency and cost efficiency, reducing annual packaging costs by 18%.
Old
Colored print is cost-intensive and large compartments allow items to slip around and cause damage. Also the compartment is divided in three parts which take too long to insert.
New
White print is more cost efficient and the individual compartments can be combined for better flexibility. The new compartment is delivered already assembled and can be quickly installed.
Outcome
Contributed to a P&L turnaround from -6% EBITDA to +4% EBITDA within two years, driven by sharper positioning, more efficient acquisition and reduced operational cost.