Picante is Australia’s first genuine Mexican Dip range. We were asked to build this brand from scratch, so we started by establishing its positioning and defining its reason for being. Once we had a strong positioning, we began the naming process, knowing that we’d need a simple, easy to pronounce Spanish or English/Spanish hybrid. The winner was Picante, a quintessentially Spanish word meaning ‘spicy’ which is unique and perfectly captures the brand’s spirit and its tangy range of flavours.

We brought the brand to life in the flat, cutout illustration style of Mexico’s Día de los Muertos, but with a fun, colourful twist. This gives the range both authenticity and dramatic standout in a category dominated by a more conservative ‘ingredients scattered on wooden tabletop’ photographic approach. We worked both the branding and ingredient imagery into the illustration and overcame the potentially negative connotations of using a skull on food packaging by ensuring that he was as happy and colourful as possible, in keeping with the vibrancy of the rest of the illustrative elements. All the primary typography used on pack has the distinctive feel Mexican street signage with a slightly imperfect, roughened feel to further enhance the authentic, Mexican feel of this packaging.

By breaking the Australian dip category mould in this way, we’ve created a unique, dynamic and engaging new player. Retailers have been very excited by this range and all four variants were immediately accepted and are doing extremely well.