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Project Overview

Start with an established supermarket brand that is looking tired compared to its competitors, and a greenfield site on the outskirts of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Sixteen short weeks later, stroll down the aisles of a brand new, fully stocked, fully functioning store, complete with a new logo hanging above the door.

This was a brand transformation project on fast forward.

Given the brief, most traditional agencies would have produced an above-the-line communications strategy to go about changing perceptions – usually a big advertising or social media campaign – in the hope of convincing consumers that the brand aligns with their values.

Not Whippet.

We believe the heart of a brand is the store itself, so rather than just telling consumers how Keells is better than its competitors, we decided to let the store do the talking, giving customers an experience unlike anything ever seen before in Sri Lanka.

From the flooring to the fascia, the fins to the freezers – and everything in between – we considered every aspect of the store to ensure that the final product would make customers say, ‘Wow’.

Project Commissioner

John Keells

Project Creator

Whippet design

Team

Steve Stoner
Tod OReilly
Peter Forbes
Kate Watts
Oliver Ward
Adam Rafferty
Matt Coghlan

Project Brief

The Keells name has an enormous amount of equity in the minds of Sri Lankans, however the supermarket brand hadn’t changed in 25 years. It was time to look for a new way forward.

The brief was simple: own a position in the minds of all Sri Lankans. The opportunity was to own “fresh”, a position no one in the market owned. It also gave us free rein to redesign their entire brand identity with no restrictions whatsoever.

Our client was looking for a world-class result, in their words – ‘bring customers the best of the world to Sri Lanka every day’. We knew the answer lay outside a traditional agency approach, so it was an exciting opportunity for us to apply our experience working on famous retail brands like Tesco and Coles to help drive big change in a rapidly growing market.

Project Innovation/Need

We knew that just telling consumers about a change would not be enough if the store remained the same. The best approach would be to completely redesign the store experience, but with less than a third of the traditional timeframe for designing and building a new supermarket, getting rapid internal buy-in was essential.

To do so, we set about undertaking consumer research and quickly uncovered two surprising truths: locals hardly ever referred to the existing stores by their official name, and they didn’t believe the food was as fresh as that at the local markets – even though it is.

The solution to the first insight was simple: we’d call it what the locals call it. With almost no internal resistance, the brand changed overnight from ‘Keells Super’ to ‘Keells’.

However, although getting approval to change the name of one of Sri Lanka’s biggest brands was an important and symbolic decision, we knew it was the easy part. The hard part would be selling in every minute aspect of our concept store to the senior leadership team in such a short amount of time.

So we built the entire store down to the finest detail – colours, finishes, messaging, layout, staff uniforms and much more – in high-resolution VR from our Melbourne office, then jumped on a plane.

Upon “walking” through the virtual store and seeing all the cues to freshness designed to shift customer perception, our client was blown away. With the concept sold-in, construction began on the bricks and mortar store.

Design Challenge

A name change, a revitalised major brand and a fully operational supermarket – all orchestrated within 16 weeks from an international office with a 5-hour time difference – was no mean feat. But we didn’t just pay attention to the big picture. We took care of all the detail, too.

For example, research had told us that, along with doubting the freshness of the food, customers found the existing stores cluttered and hard to navigate, so we made sure our store design featured lots of bright, airy spaces and clear overhead navigation.

Whilst building the store concept in VR it quickly became apparent that there was a huge amount of available wall space, so we took advantage of it and used it to inspire and educate customers about where the produce at Keells is sourced from.

Compelling in-store messaging, along with quality finishes and attractive displays, allowed us to present the fresh produce in its best possible light, helping to convince customers that the fresh food at Keells is as fresh as it gets.

To further reinforce this feeling of a commitment to freshness, we drew inspiration from the colours of Colombo and incorporated a bright palette throughout the store, along with bold references to fresh fruit, vegetables and delicious baked goods.

We even created Keells’ first ever in-supermarket juice bar, with fresh juices and smoothies made on site, and devised a ‘Foods of the World’ Tuk Tuk to represent ‘bringing the best of the world to Sri Lankans every day’.

User Experience

Here we’ll let quotations speak for us. We will, however, mention that sales were up 20% in the first month, compared to the old store.

“The new brand and new store design, inclusive of every element that went into the store, has propelled our brand ahead in the industry and has also resulted in improved sales performance overall, particularly in some of the new service offerings.

The team at Whippet seamlessly worked with us in a manner where we felt they were an extension of our own team. They are innovative, creative, very responsive and were committed towards making this brand relaunch a reality.

The kind of expertise they bring to the table along with the amazing team behind the scenes made this challenging process much more pleasant.”

– Charitha Subasinghe, CEO Keells Supermarkets


“It’s a joy to work with Whippet, a truly retail-focused design agency.

"Through an inclusive process, they challenge design, debate intelligently and drive genuine innovation that customers really care about and most importantly, deliver results. They are also great fun to work with.

"The work we produced for Keells lead to excellent results and took the business much further than we initially thought was possible. Overall, an outstanding project with an agency I would not hesitate to work with again.”

– Simon Turner, retail strategist and leading consultant for Keells supermarkets

Branded Experience

This award celebrates creative and innovative design for branded experiences intended to persuade an audience to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas or services. Consideration given to the technical, conceptual and aesthetic elements, user experience, audience engagement and message delivery.
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