Barnana, a healthy and sustainable snack brand experiencing rapid growth after finding retail success, needed an updated brand identity that would appeal to their new and evolving audience. As lead strategist of Barnana’s agency of record, I designed a cohesive brand architecture reimagining the Barnana personality and positioning. In close collaboration with my creative partners, I led the development of a comprehensive brand book, providing rules and structure for deploying their brand as it continues to grow.

Our problem to solve: Barnana’s early adopters were ingredient-obsessed nutrition label readers who were comfortable trying out unfamiliar brands they discovered in the health food section, but when a successful new product line catapulted the brand into the highly competitive snacking aisle, Barnana needed to build recognition among a wider audience with new and different motivations.

Snacking is the most emotional eating occasion. It’s certainly the only occasion that’s regularly accused of being “mindless,” and because snacks tend to be fast, effortless and satisfying, it’s almost a cliche in CPG marketing to position them as an “escape” from the stress of daily life. National snacking trends showed that emotional desires like pleasure, comfort, and fun were only growing in importance. We needed to appeal to these emotional needs without alienating the mindful eaters who already love the brand.

The insight: A snacking escape isn’t mindless indulgence; it’s a chance to immerse yourself in a new, exciting world.

Internal research into Barnana’s evolving audience revealed that “escape” meant something very different to the Barnana snacker, who showed an unusually strong craving for cultural experiences and novelty. We needed to position these snacks escape to something rather than from something — not a passive getaway from reality but an active pursuit of meaning. To our curious, adventurous audience, snacking can provide a small taste of a lifestyle that’s different from their own, filling their needs for vibrancy, energy, and exploration.

Our task: Convince our adventure-loving audience to proactively seek out the Barnana brand by breaking up their routine with culture, color, and guilt-free fun.

We crafted a thorough brand book to bring this vision to life, with guidelines designed to be specific and actionable while remaining flexible to future growth.

We then launched a brand awareness campaign to reintroduce this new brand across Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, search, digital banner ads, podcast advertising, Waze, and Instacart, achieving over 100 million impressions. With this strong foundation in place, Barnana continues to expand its product line with new offerings, successfully growing their customer base and gaining market share in the category.