Challenge
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) is not a virgin brand theme in Portugal.
These days it seems that every owner of a piece of Portuguese land has one. We could say it’s fashionable, which is not so strange for a country perfectly suited to cultivating olive oil. The market is, therefore, fierce.
Still, it strikes us as awkward that with so many competitors they all seem to communicate their EVOO brand in the same way: highlighting the quality, the olive oil’s origin, the legacy, the geography, the care, and so on. As if there is no room for new angles such as humour, storytelling, folklore or anything else that could be seen as a genuine brand differentiator.
Pedro Balancho was another Portuguese landowner looking to create an olive oil. But there was something different about him: he wanted to produce not just a cool olive oil to show off to friends & family, but a world-class EVOO. He knew a dream like this comes at a price, so he invested his savings planting 160,000 olive trees on his family’s estate; he adopted “food forest product” and other sustainable practices; he recruited a top oleologist to ‘design’ his olive oil; he briefed our agency to create a brand that wouldn’t just follow the category’s high-profile aesthetics and trends, but would mainly and primarily get its inspiration from the Guadiana region’s ancient rural folklore and storytelling. Thus Maltês (pronounced “mal-te-sh”) was born. A brand that takes its purpose seriously but doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Work
Maltês is the name of a well-known nursery rhyme every Portuguese person knows from childhood (“Once upon a time there was a Maltese cat…”). Since Maltês is a character, for the first olive oil production we decided to create a new Maltês character. An eccentric nomadic figure, resembling a cat, who roams the desolate Guadiana landscape searching for the best olive trees and the best olives which he then picks, prunes and harvests to produce the best olive oil. He knows it’s not the best EVOO in the world, but he’s working on it.
Packaging: Highlights the Maltês character in all his folkloric muppet-like splendour. It also shows the landscape’s fauna and flora that shapes him and his olive oil. The bottle was carefully chosen and painted in an ancient-like black matte colour. The spots were covered in gold.
Brand Voice: Maltês is an old character roaming a modern world. He doesn’t fit in. That’s why he provides an escape landscape where one can find refuge and just be. The bodycopy highlights his wandering purpose, as does the tone of voice throughout different platforms, such as packaging (bottle and cardboard), website and social media.
