New energy for an original from Berlin. Online, offline and IRL.
Info
- Sawade Berlin
- 2013
- Website
Strategy
- Insights
- Brand Strategy
- Product Strategy
Design
- Visual Identity
- UX/UI
- Packaging Design
Transformation
- Training
Sawade is Berlin’s most traditional chocolate manufacturer and one of the oldest chocolate brands in Germany. The first shop opened in 1880 on the Unter den Linden grand boulevard and offered handmade confectionery. Little time hop: Sawade was awarded for being the most beautiful owner-managed specialist shop in Germany in 2018.
When we got together with Sawade, Melanie and Benno Hübel had bought the insolvent company and prepared a business plan. Are we going to use the old recipes, do we reinvent the praline? The mission statement is to cultivate Berlin and to remain loyal to its own tradition and regular customers. In concrete terms, this meant staying with the alcohol-filled chocolate – made in Berlin. And in the very best quality.
The most important competence for us was the strategy: working out the basis, the values and the USP. I wouldn’t want anyone else for that. Basically the project manager at Stan Hema is like a temporary entrepreneur, he wants the best for his ‘baby’. The design was very important in the second step, because that was our big fanfare. The results often surprised us, and that’s exactly what we wanted.
Melanie Hübel
Sawade Berlin
This is how we found the experience of working together with Stan Hema: curious, helpful, friendly, committed and, most importantly, smart! Strategically sound.
Benno Hübel
Sawade Berlin
We accompanied the entire development or rather rebirth of the brand, familiarised ourselves with the material, or rather: ate our way through it. The aim: to understand the special quality, crispness and freshness of the typical German praline and bring it to new young target groups. Product, appearance, packaging, distribution, everything should match.
Stan Hema developed the new look for Sawade. We included the brand and packaging history, and designed the range content working agilely together with the new owners. Workshops on the imagery and colours were part of this; our mood boards are still used by our clients today. We were able to introduce new sales ideas, for example “mono varieties”, units of several single variety chocolates. We worked on special editions and chocolate sizes. As with the chocolates, Stan Hema handcrafted marble paper and decoration that makes the Sawade boxes chic enough for contemporary concept stores as well as for old-established sweet shops. The brand dazzles in timeless reminiscence of wild 1920s Berlin. The Sawade shops stage this cultural background online and offline, and provide optimum accessibility for today’s target groups.
It was about reviving this great brand, retaining its relevance to Berlin. As a souvenir for the whole world.
Stephanie Kurz
Brand strategy
It was worth it: the Süßer Stern 2018 industry award from the Sweet Global Network went to the Sawade flagship store in the Hackesche Höfe in Berlin, conceived by Stan Hema together with the architects bfs design. We also developed the “digital shop” for Sawade, together with colleagues from Turbine Kreuzberg. Sawade was awarded the special prize for best online shop.
We only had very little to do for Sawade when it came to the naming. Love did that 150 years ago: the company founder Ladislaus Maximilianus Ziemkiewicz raved about his neighbour Marie de Savadé and named his confectionery shop after her. Is that why the aristocracy became aware of the manufactory? Prince George of Prussia and Grand Duke of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach appointed the confectioner as supplier to the royal court. One thing still applies today as it did back then and the history of the House of Sawade makes it clear: working on the brand helps achieve the entrepreneurial goals.
Measurable success in the Sawade case includes 10 awards for individual varieties and ranges in 2019 alone but also the safeguarding of jobs at the Berlin production site. An original Berlin cult brand has made the leap into the 21st century.
