The Whole Truth: A Quick Review on the Branding and Copy
[Design In-Sanity]
Hey there!! How are you? Welcome to Design In-Sanity, a lazy blog where I talk about stuff related to design and mental well-being, so that…well, this isn’t weird at all…you and I can unleash our superpowers!! #UnleashYourSuperpower #StayCreative
So, at Design Studio — my day job that gives me the much needed money that I need to survive — we have these weekly sessions where we sit together, I take snacks most of which I, myself, end up eating, and we discuss various things that can help us get better at understanding people and hence designing things for them. This initiative was started by Debobrata Debnath and since then, I have taken on his mantle to carry on this ritual.
You may be wondering, “Umm…who’s Debobrata Debnath, btw??”
Well, D2, as he likes to be called, is an excellent UX designer with a brain that can be stored in the museum, with a humongous creative flair and with a heart of gold. He’s basically an artist, a photographer, a blogger and definitely one of the best UX guys that I have met till date. Do check out his page!!
Anyway, coming back to our sessions, we start off by asking everyone what new thing they have learnt or experienced or observed through the week. It can be anything starting from some gorgeously creative shopping bag that some stranger was carrying on the street to some tiny element in an app that one uses to some latest news about one’s favourite software.
The point is to cultivate the practice of observing, and to share things so that we can all learn from every individual’s experiences.
So, last week when everyone was sharing their findings, I did something new. It started with trying to jot down the keywords from everyone’s experiences. And turned out that the base note of everyone’s findings is directly related to what we do: design the user experience.
Here were the base notes of the 6 members (excluding me) of our tiny team:
- Communication is the key
- Be different to get noticed
- Try something new, and observe the improvement
- Increasing knowledge by spreading it
- See things with different perspective
- Being aligned with things in both life and on the artboard
Curious, isn’t it? 😊
Then came my turn. Among the many findings for the week, there was one treasure box called “The Whole Truth”.
No, that’s not the movie I’m talking about. It’s a food brand that sells protein bars, and in the most unique way!
Conceived during the pandemic, this Indian (totally Desi) brand witnessed its growth over Zoom calls and other virtual meeting platforms. The Whole Truth is the child of Shashank Mehta, a once-100kgs-weighing-man who decided to uncover the truth behind what fancy food wrappers are hiding in their microscopic list of ingredients and behind their multiple * (conditions apply) marks.
In order to follow his passion of bringing good, healthy food with no-hidden-behind-the-veil ingredients, he quit his job at Unilever, and founded The Whole Truth.
Okay, now, coming to the main area of my findings: the branding and the copy.
#1: Revealing it All
The Whole Truth believes in the motto #NothingToHide. And indeed, they lay out all the ingredients on the frontside of the package, unlike other brands that stick a drool-worthy image on the front-side and then list down the ingredients on the backside of the package, and in fonts that are below 14 px, topped with star marks leaving a trail from the front of the pack to the back.
When a brand comes forth with such confidence, one cannot help but believe them. Of course, there will always be a few curious cats who will slice down the product to verify if the packet is indeed telling the “whole” truth. So, I believe that the brand must be ready for such truth-seekers with there all-true-no-nonsense ethics.
Another highly interesting thing is that you will not find a single star mark on any of their packets!!
Now that is something epic!
#2. Casual Confident Conversation
The copy used in any product — whether it is physical or digital — has a strong impact on the minds of its customers.
Now, there are two kinds of customers: one that observes every element of the branding and copy and admires or critiques it, and another that uses the product just for the sake of using it, without giving any notice to the effort put behind the branding.
It is not surprising that the first category of customers are the ones who tend to be loyal to the brand. That’s because they take the time to interact with the brand, and not simply for getting their work done. Once people get involved with a brand on a level beyond mere necessity, they start getting emotionally attached to it.
The other category of people simply seek to get the job done regardless of much or any emotions, and might resort to any other brand that they find useful.
But why am I saying all these?
To emphasise that good, and if possible, out-of-the-box branding is necessary for the few customers who love it; these are ones who will become advocates of your brand (the 6th stage of the sales funnel…rings a bell?)
The Whole Truth understands this basic psychology and hence has strived to make themselves stand out with an utterly friendly, casual and bold approach to their brand copy. One look at their website or packaging, and you’ll be immediately thirsty for reading more.
With a short and crisp intro message, they have put the spotlight on their USP which is, I believe, a smart move. Why?
- Minimal message as the centrepiece of a given area means that one will inadvertently focus their view on that mysterious yet important piece of text.
- Neatly laying the products out around the message is a great way of introducing first-timers to their product, while emphasising the wide variety that they produce. Plus, the neat arrangement gives a sense of clarity, to-the-point vibe and the courage to trust the brand.
- Although everything in the first fold is symmetrical and in line like people in a parade, the font used for the message and the style used for the CTA keeps the design away from being a tight-a*s formal thing.
As you move through the pages, you will find that while they are usually pretty straightforward with their words, at a few other times, they are going sort of dreamy…in a good way!
And then there are rebels…
Now, almost every website will shoot a pop-up aimed towards your face after you have spent a few seconds on it. What makes some pop-ups less annoying than most are few small but crucial factors like the copy and the ease of getting that pop-up out of your face a.k.a a “close” option.
The Whole Truth is no different in that it releases a pop-up after a site visitor has spent a little time on a page. But it has nailed both the important factors very well, thus making it very different from its competitors.
So, the pop-up arrives to offer first-time users a 10% off on TWT products. The heading reads “Pehli Bar?” which literally means “First Time?” in Hindi. Also, one may interpret it as “First Bar?” since it’s a company that sells bars. You see what they did there?
Also scattered are small fun-filled texts here and there like…
Or something like this on the footer where they are offering discounts and free e-books. Hmm…yummy bait!
And there’s product description… (God! There are just so many examples!!)
Ah! That’s some good copy! 😍
#3: Portion-controlled Bites
Though one might say that this is not a part of branding, I’d digress and say, “Yes, it very much is!”
After all, branding is how you present your product or service to the world. So, when somebody decided to make Tesseract-shaped soaps, it was part of their brand design.
The Whole Truth is absolutely different from other brands because it sells its dark chocolates in portion-sized bars. It means that the bites in each bar are differently sized, unlike the same-sized squares or rectangles of chocolate bars. Each portion has different sizes written on it that starts from XS and goes to XL.
Isn’t it wonderful to divide your bar based on your hunger or mood?!
So, I guess that’s it! If I discover something new, then I’ll write about it again!
Until then, ciao! Take care, love thyself, help those who deserve help, keep those positive vibes floating and definitely keep that creative spark burning!!
Love ya!! 😘
