“Flawsome”: how turning a negative brand perception into a positive one can increase sales by 540%

The British brand “Get Wonky” started out with a great purpose but a poor positioning and branding. In fact, the company takes flawed fruits and vegetables -i.e. fruits and vegetables that are perfectly fine to eat but do not look “the part” and therefor would be wasted – and transforms them into delicious cold-pressed juices. In the process, the company wants to educate people about the food waste problem, a noble endeavor.

However, an increasing number of competitors (especially retailers) also started to claim to be “wonky”. As a result, differentiation started to erode, growth and distribution started to stagnate, and investors started to become more hesitant to invest in the company’s future growth. Plus the name “Get wonky” put the emphasis on the imperfection of the fruits and veggies rather than the fact that these product were perfectly delicious to eat.

The brilliance of the repositioning and rebranding was that the company decided to fully embrace the products and category’s inherent weakness (flawed fruits and vegetables) and turn it into something positive (awesome) by choosing a name that would express this: Flawsome. In addition to its new name and positioning the whole brand was redesigned.

The results speak for themselves: sales increased by 540% post-redesign (no advertising or promotion was used to support the relaunch) and the number of distributors willing to list the brand tripled. Obviously, the brand also received a lot of buzz which I am sure raised awareness levels.  

Embracing a perceived negative and turning it into a positive is one of the 26 proven effective positioning strategies we explore in our positioning development methodology and a highly effective way to re-position and grow a brand. The other interesting lesson here is about the power of branding. In fact, Flawsome didn’t spend any money on advertising and promotions for the relaunch and instead just benefitted from the buzz its repositioning and rebranding created.

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