New branding set to rock the fruit industry

Minature apple brand Rockit has unveiled a fresh new brand identity, created by Special Group New Zealand.

The new brand is designed to work across all the company’s touchpoints, including a new logomark and identity, packaging, cartons, website, digital content, signage, livery and even some pack-house shirts!

Rockit is the world’s first miniature apple (as recognised by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) and helps everyone from kids to elite athletes to ‘Rockit’ every day. Convenient and healthy, they come in a handy recyclable tube. This modern approach to apples is designed to stand out across all platforms in all relevant markets in China, USA, Australia and New Zealand.

“We needed Rockit to break the mould and stand out,” said Julian Smith, GM of Global Marketing. “Rockit apples are premium, so we needed a brand that reflects our premium price positioning, whilst also engaging with the health-conscious parent.”

“We didn’t want a design ecosystem that compared apples with apples, so we needed a creative partner that could help us really stand out. That’s why we’re so pleased to have partnered with Special Group, who have helped us turn Rockit into the Rockstar of the apple world.”

The branding and design work has come at a pivotal moment for Rockit Global which has quickly expanded into 30 markets, and is predicted to sell well over 400 million apples per year by 2025.

The identity refresh has seen a new range of iconic symbols created, derived from the typography of the new word mark. Ranging from the more descriptive (such as apples, leaves and blossoms) to the more symbolic (such as a lightning bolt, star and exclamation mark), illustrations represent the brand’s energy and attitudinal purpose. The new colour palette reflects the natural environment where Rockit™ apples are grown and the seasonal colour changes of flora and land throughout the year.

“We really wanted to create an identity that proves these apples have attitude,” said Richard Francis, design director at Special Group. “Visually, we needed to communicate this energy, while also amplifying our cheeky challenger mindset to make the brand inspiring for parents, engaging for kids, and different to anything the category had seen before.”

Heath Lowe, founder and executive design director at Special Group, added: “Rockit are one of our dream clients – they are a modern, entrepreneurial Kiwi success story, and we were excited for the opportunity to create a fresh new brand for such an innovative company. A company which is going from strength-to-strength, and resonating in markets from Australia to China to Dubai.”

For more information on Rockit Apples, please visit https://www.rockitapple.com/

ENDS

Issued on behalf of Special Group

Detailed execution:
To bring Rockit’s attitudinal, cheeky nature to life we developed a flexible brand system of colour, type and artwork. All of our icons have been drawn based on letterform characteristics from our logo typeface Domain Display. The counter space in the ‘a’ forms our leaf symbol and apple seed. The quarter apple segment is based on the shape of half an ‘o’ letterform. This construction method means all our iconic symbols are always stylistically connected to our brand and create a template that can be used for future drawing. The symbols represent our business, our brand and our apples. They range from the more descriptive (apples, leaves, blossoms) to the more symbolic use of the lightening bolt, star and exclamation mark to represent our energetic and attitudinal purpose. The system was designed to be flexible enough to be played with and pushed around to make great artwork. Our logo was lovingly crafted to emphasise the premium aspect of our brand, with a tilted ‘o’ that leans into the rest of the rest of the mark and is a hint at our cheeky playful side. Our colour palette is composed of colours drawn from our product and place in beautiful Hawke’s Bay, NZ.