BRAND STRATEGY | BRAND IDENTITY | MESSAGING

HADJ

BACKGROUND

Growing up in Nigeria, Hadj would help her mum prepare amazing hot sauces around the kitchen table from the chillies they grew in the family garden. Her love for crafting these complex, rich, vibrant sauces never left her.

Years later, she shared them with friends; they loved them too and said she should start selling them.

Hadj agreed and decided to share her love for these versatile chilli sauces with other lovers of the hot stuff.

SOLUTION

We met her and persuaded her to use her name. Her name was short, started with H, and H=HOT! It also ended in a J, which we made into a chilli. Using your name is something start-ups don't do often these days, but it was normal years ago. If it was good enough for Hoover, Harrods and Heineken (probably), it's good enough for Hadj.

We knew from research that centrally placed branding is effective and that patterns, based on her Nigerian routes, would give the brand great shelf impact while also conveying the vibrancy of the flavours.