LMC gives Nestlé’s Munch Bunch a ‘healthy’ makeover

Nestlé’s children’s dairy brand Munch Bunch is to relaunch this week, with positioning, characters and packaging created by LMC Design. The move is believed to be part of Nestlé’s plans to extend the range beyond dairy products.

According to LMC Design design director Peter Young, the group was briefed to reposition the brand as ‘healthy fun’ and to create a solution that would ultimately enable the brand to expand.

‘Rather than the characters being simply fruit, we’ve created characters that represent the products’ health benefits. This will enable Nestlé to extend the range across new products; it gives the range more flexibility,’ says Young.

A Nestlé spokeswoman says ‘opportunities are endless’ for the brand, but would not disclose details because of commercial sensitivity. The redesign reflects research, which highlighted that the products’ health and nutrition messages were not well understood and that packaging was ‘more to do with fun and play than healthy eating’, says Young.

‘The old packaging was perceived as having lots of sugar, and the challenge lay in getting a balance between health messages for adults and fun elements for children,’ he says.

Characters with names such as Bones, who champions calcium, and Bristles, who promotes the importance of fibre, now play a key role on the packaging, which also features significantly more white space. ‘Packaging is much more natural and clean, to evoke health cues,’ says Young.

LMC Design, which is a Nestlé roster group, was appointed after a competitive creative pitch against one other consultancy. Illustrations were created in-house by senior designer Caroline Lashbrook.

According to LMC managing director Andrew Cole, the group’s work is also being ‘extended into other media, both above- and below-the-line’, with the relaunch being supported by an £8m campaign, including TV advertising by Ogilvy, and an interactive website designed by Pilot Interactive.

MUNCH BUNCH HISTORY
• Originally a children’s story featuring 26 fruit and vegetable characters
• Eden Vale launches range as a yogurt brand featuring some of the characters in the early 1980s
• Nestlé acquires the brand in 2002
• ‘Healthy fun’ relaunch by LMC Design in 2007