Meesho's Makeover: From Humble Beginnings to Vibrant Bazaar
Meesho sought to shed limiting perceptions, differentiate themselves in a crowded market, and infuse their brand with excitement and modernity, all while retaining their unique Indian essence. Landor, the design powerhouse tasked with crafting a vibrant new look that captured Meesho's spirit and scale.
This case study explores the collaborative journey between Meesho and Landor, revealing the strategic decisions, design challenges, and cultural considerations that shaped Meesho's new identity.
Understanding the Audience
Who is Meesho's target audience and explain their characteristics and needs in detail.
The younger generation is very comfortable with technology and can easily navigate through different apps and platforms. They have access to smartphones at an early age and use them for entertainment, education, social connectivity, and online shopping. They have aspirations and try to overcome socio-economic limitations to achieve their desired lifestyles.
On the other hand, older generations are gradually becoming familiar with technology and often use basic phones or share smartphones within their families. Their tech usage is mainly driven by necessity and is supervised by their family members. They aim for financial independence and stability and their buying decisions are influenced by the needs of their families.
Both these groups prioritise value for money and seek platforms that offer quality products at affordable prices. Social proof and recommendations from their networks also significantly impact their choices.
Meesho is a platform that attracts sellers, mainly small business owners and entrepreneurs who want to expand their customer base. They appreciate the platform's potential to reach a broader audience online. However, these sellers face challenges, including limited familiarity with online selling, concerns about product quality and delivery, and the ongoing need for support and training. Their ideal platform should be user-friendly, offer competitive margins, and ensure reliable customer service.W
Why Rebrand?
What were Meesho's goals and objectives for rebranding with Landor?
Meesho wanted to differentiate itself from the competition and create a memorable brand identity. To achieve this, they needed new assets and use cases that would add excitement to their current toolkit. Preserving an unmistakable Indian essence was crucial, while also ensuring a contemporary feel to infuse soul into the marketplace that the brand previously lacked.
What elements of their current brand identity did they want to preserve, and what did they want to alter?
The Meesho team conducted consumer testing on their current and potential new logos to confirm their decision to stick to their current wordmark and the ‘m’ within it. So, their strategy revolved around infusing their current asset with meaning, significance, and purpose. They aimed to seamlessly integrate it into a brand universe that not only embraces it but also enhances it as a unique brand ecosystem in itself.
How did you work with Meesho's team to ensure that the new brand identity aligned with their vision?
When creating a brand, it's important to involve the team that will be responsible for implementing and representing it. Landor worked closely with internal stakeholders, including employees from different teams and levels of hierarchy. Initially, we were given creative freedom to come up with ideas for a modern Indian e-commerce brand. However, during the second half of the project, we focused on practical solutions and addressed feedback from the team's testing processes. We worked together in small working sessions, where both creative and internal teams collaborated to ensure harmony and solve any issues that arose.
The Design Strategy
What was your vision for Meesho's new identity?
It is important to note that strategy plays a significant role in guiding such projects. It is crucial to make calculated decisions that can bring merit to the overall brand. In this context, Meesho aimed to develop a fresh brand expression that captures the essence of shopping, feels new in the e-commerce industry, has a strong design system, and reflects Indianness. At the same time, it retained certain brand elements to maintain familiarity with existing customers.
Could you share details about Meesho's latest visual system?
Meesho has introduced 'The Buzz' as its new unified visual brand expression.
The Buzz is essentially a representation of a space that exudes both commerce and passion. Its objective is to capture the essence of what the local market signifies for the contemporary Indian - the thrill of shopping, the optimism of finding precisely what one is searching for, and the energy that diversity brings along.
Meesho has developed a new visual language to ensure consistency across the thousand-plus pieces of outgoing communication each month. The new framework is modular, versatile and scalable across applications, making it easy to adapt to different formats. Whether it's dense or expressive, motion or still, digital or print, the visual system can be easily customised to suit the needs of its creator and effectively turn assets around.
The Meesho app's visual language effortlessly translates into its reimagined app interface, with the potential to become even more evocative as the visual grows parallel to the brand.
What inspired the colour choices for the new palette and how do they resonate with Meesho's target audience?
We understand the importance of brand identities in creating a lasting impression and standing out in the competitive market. In the E-commerce sector, the colour red is widely used, while Meesho's competitors prefer yellow and blue. To differentiate ourselves from our competitors, we conducted quant testing and finalised 'Jamuni & Aam' as our primary palette. This unique palette helps us appear gender-neutral, as requested by our brand.
How brands are created digitally has changed significantly over the past few decades. Historically, it has been difficult to use the colour purple consistently across different brand touchpoints. However, we have developed a new colour called 'Jamuni' which is print-friendly and makes it easier to use purple. Additionally, we have introduced a colour called 'Aam' which complements Jamuni and helps to minimise any discrepancies in the application of colour.
The theory of colour suggests that purple is associated with aspiration and prestige, while "Aam" creates a warm and welcoming atmosphere, using colour to evoke confidence and approachability. Both colours are already present in our target audience's world, making them easier to remember. The overall colour palette represents the richness and diversity of India.
What was the inspiration behind the font choices in the redesign?
Meesho's brand typefaces were designed to reflect its revised personality - friendly, optimistic, and flavourful - informed by its primary symbol, which is essentially an alphabet.
1. Nunito Rounded, which is available on Google Fonts, is a well-balanced rounded terminal sans-serif. The typeface was chosen for its ability to convey personality while still maintaining Grotesk proportions. Display copy in Nunito Rounded appears soft and approachable, making it easy for users to connect with the brand on a personal and relatable level.
2. Mier, created by General Type Studio, serves as the secondary typeface and is the brand's workhorse. It is designed to be digitally friendly, ensuring optimal legibility across various devices and screen sizes, thereby enhancing the user experience.
The Challenges
Can you please explain the particular design difficulties that you encountered while developing the new brand identity for Meesho?
Creating a new brand identity for Meesho was challenging. We had to strike a balance between simplicity and flexibility. Our main challenge was to create a system that was easy to understand and implement. This was complicated by the fact that Meesho has over a thousand outgoing communications every month. Our goal was to make sure that the brand image was consistent across all channels and messages. Thus, it was crucial to create a well-crafted and adaptable brand identity that could be easily implemented and maintained.
How did you ensure that the new brand identity was culturally appropriate and sensitive to India's diverse population?
India is a country that is diverse in a multitude of ways. To create an inclusive environment, we had to take into account these differences and ensure that they were celebrated. We began by broadening our horizons and looking beyond social classes and genders to find similarities that unite India. As we discussed previously, we strategically chose Jamuni as the primary colour palette since it holds no preconceived notions and acts as a universal collaborator.
To make Meesho's expression language-neutral, we created a symbol that could be adjusted to various languages. This not only allowed for localisation but also made it easier for the brand to connect with customers on a personal level. Since we're an ecommerce brand, we wanted to ensure that our customers felt a human touch, which is why we created an adaptable visual system. We knew that to achieve this, we had to make adjustments both on the back end and on the customer-facing side. We also had to consider that some customers may be using low-resolution phones, so we made the visual system bold and solid.
The Result
What is the response of Meesho's target audience and stakeholders to its new brand identity?
Meesho has recently updated its brand identity to highlight how the e-commerce platform assists every Indian in making a value-driven purchase decision that brings them absolute joy. The goal is to enable customers to overcome their limitations and fulfil their aspirations through Meesho's broad range of high-quality products that are available at the most competitive prices.
Since Meesho's brand refreshed, they have seen positive results across various metrics. The efforts have been effective, as demonstrated by Kantar's Brand Health Study, which shows a significant increase in gender inclusivity perception.
The recent advancements in Meesho's performance marketing, specifically the increased organic coverage and more efficient conversions towards male audiences, indicate a triumphant approach to captivating and involving a varied audience. The encouraging trends in the frequency of app opening and interactions with the updated elements suggest that not only users are engaging with the app more often, but they're also responding positively to the revitalised brand identity.
The positive feedback received from consumers during the field visits and interactions confirms the success of their brand refresh. Meesho's brand identity has undergone a complete transformation, demonstrating its commitment to being an inclusive and egalitarian e-commerce platform. Meesho has made bold and ambitious decisions that were ahead of the time. At Meesho, they maintained a long-term perspective, which helped to stay focused on the core values and mission.
The Business Impact
Could you share how the recent rebranding has affected Meesho's business performance?
The rebranding of Meesho has significantly impacted the business performance, especially in key metrics that reflect the brand's success in reaching and engaging a diverse audience. The brand revamp has positively influenced the share of installs, app opens, and orders from male consumers. The positive uptick in brand health among new audiences in metro and tier 1 markets indicates that the rebranding has not only resonated with existing customers but has also attracted and appealed to newer segments.
