Twinings - green with envy?

Earlier in the week I spoke about Jordan's cereal redesigning in time for a January launch and it seems another health brand is trying to follow suit. BrandOpus have finished the new packaging for the Twinings Green tea range.

As a green tea drinker I have recently changed brand from Twinings to Clipper, this was a price decision based on my assumption that neither brand afforded me any greater health benefits so why not save a few pennies. Clipper are currently on market trend with their packaging using a quirky illustration style, territory the 

M Savers range has tried to copy, whilst also pushing their Fairtrade credentials. Twinings on the other hand are aspirational, authentic and rooted in quality, have they managed to pull this off with their rebrand?

I so want to say yes but under close inspection it hasn't succeeded.

The gold brand mark, royal stamp and deep green on the top of the pack work beautifully, creating a real sense of occasion. A fresh evolution on the previous static banner design. The product feels natural and healthy exuded by the green now flowing around the Twinings holding device.

Moving downwards the design erodes and becomes conflicting. The light green is clinical and cold in direct contrast to the warm golds and greens at the top of the pack. The architecture of the pack is all wrong. For a consumer with a split second to decipher your brand I still believe the product should read - Brand, Sub brand and variant. This new design has the variant over-arching the sub brand, to the point where the sub brand changes size and position throughout the 4 variants.I would have Twinings, Green Tea, variant ie Jasmine.
I guess there'll be a few Jasmine lovers who end up with Mango and Lychee. I do however like the choice of font, it gives a sense of ethnicity.

The imagery for the pack leaves me slightly bewildered. This will have something to do with the fact that BrandOpus commissioned a fashion illustrator, Tobie Giddio for the imagery. The product shots are now somewhat abstract and a loose representation of the ingredients within. I feel that agencies do our industry a disservice when we commission outside sources. We are supposedly the masters of packaging yet go to others when we really want to get creative..not a good signal to send. The consumer will have no idea that these designs were commissioned and will not engage with Twinings because of this, they will however care that they have no idea what the product is.

So all in all we have a pack with confusing architecture, abstract imagery and conflicting colour ways. I feel that the design will keep existing customers but may struggle to entice new customers into the category. Clipper have made green tea more accessible yet in what must be a strategic move, Twinings have pushed herbal tea further into occasional and cultured drinking.

Check out my review on a new Herbal tea brand called Pavillion Garden