Case Study
If It Is Truffle,
It Is Gusto.
Truffle is one of the most recognisable ingredients in the world. The challenge is not awareness. It is ownership. We helped Gusto become the brand that owns it.
Gusto — Gourmet Foods, Truffle Range
Aug 2024 – May 2025
Visual Identity · Verbal Identity · Brand Positioning
F&B / Premium Gourmet FMCG
Philosophy
“The most confident brands can afford to be relaxed — because they have nothing to prove. We positioned Gusto's truffle range with that same confidence.”
Overview
Premium Without
the Exclusivity Problem
Gusto wanted its truffle range to do something most gourmet products fail at: feel genuinely premium and completely approachable at the same time. Truffle carries connotations of inaccessibility — fine dining, chef's counters, eye-watering price points. Gusto's products are none of those things. They are made for home cooks who want to elevate their everyday food without needing a culinary degree to do it. The brief was a brand positioning challenge in its purest form: how do you own a premium category without making your audience feel excluded from it?
The Challenge
Insights That
Shaped the Work
Truffle as a product category has a positioning problem. Brands either lean into the luxury angle so hard they become unapproachable, or make it so casual it loses all the sense of specialness that makes it desirable.
The Truffle Range Lacked Visual Presence
Within Gusto's wider portfolio, the truffle range did not stand out on shelf or in digital contexts. The design direction needed to signal premium without becoming cold or intimidating — a classic FMCG finding where the product range has grown but the visual system hasn't.
No Verbal Identity, No Brand Memory
The truffle range lacked any lines, claims, or personality that gave consumers a reason to choose Gusto specifically. Without a voice, there was no brand memory — only product visibility, which is never enough in a crowded category.
Inconsistent Presence Across Touchpoints
Without unified visual and verbal direction, the truffle range was showing up differently across packaging, digital, and print — diluting positioning and making it harder for consumers to build a consistent relationship with the brand.
Strategic Approach
Claim the Category.
Own It Completely.
Position Gusto as the default choice for truffle — the brand that owns the category so completely that choosing anything else feels like a compromise.
01
Claim Category Authority with a Playful Tone
Authority and playfulness are not opposites. The most confident brands can afford to be relaxed because they have nothing to prove. We positioned Gusto's truffle range with that same confidence — a voice that knows it is the best and invites you to enjoy it, rather than lecturing you about why.
02
Build a Visual and Verbal System That Travels
Every element of the refresh — from design direction to taglines to packaging copy — was built to work together and work consistently across every context Gusto operates in. Not a photoshoot look or a campaign idea, but a unified system that produces the same premium, playful, distinctly Gusto result at every touchpoint.
How the Work Unfolded
Four Phases.
One Direction.
From brand audit through creative brief, visual direction, verbal identity, and full touchpoint integration — all aligned around one strategic intent.
Phase 01
Audit & Strategy
Discovery
Phase 02
Visual Identity
Build
Phase 03
Verbal Identity
Voice
Phase 04
Integration
Activate → Ongoing
The Verbal Architecture
Three Lines.
One Brand Voice.
Three lines that together form the complete verbal system — category claim, usability, and lifestyle. Built to be memorable, repeatable, and commercially precise.
Category Ownership Line
If it's Truffle, it's Gusto.
A statement that positions Gusto not as a truffle brand, but as the truffle brand. Memorable, confident, and commercially precise — the kind of line that ends the consideration process.
Usability Line
Stir, Drip, Drizzle.
Three words that collapse the perceived complexity of cooking with truffle into something anyone can do. This line does the work of making premium feel genuinely accessible — without dumbing it down.
Lifestyle Line
Life's Too Short for Boring Bites.
Places Gusto in a broader conversation about food enjoyment — inviting consumers to see truffle not as an occasional luxury but as an everyday upgrade. The line that opens the category up.
The Work
Three Workstreams.
One Cohesive System.
Repositioning and re-packaging of Gusto's truffle range — from creative brief through design oversight to tagline development and full touchpoint integration. Strategy, creative, and oversight treated as a single workstream.
Visual Direction & Design Oversight
Creative Brief, Palette, Typography & Portfolio Integration
A comprehensive creative brief defining the perception shift, key visual elements to retain or evolve, and the aesthetic territory: premium, warm, and appetite-driven rather than cold or clinical. Oversight through every design stage — typography, colour, overall aesthetics — to ensure the final output matched the strategic brief and worked as a cohesive range.
Verbal Identity & Tagline Development
Brand Voice, Three Key Lines & Verbal Architecture
A verbal identity that is confident, indulgent, and playful — a voice that has earned its authority and wears it lightly. Three lines developed: the category ownership line, the usability line, and the lifestyle line. Together, they form the complete verbal architecture of the truffle range.
Integration Across Touchpoints
Packaging, Digital, Print, Point-of-Sale & Social
Visual and verbal identity seeded across every surface the truffle range touches — packaging, pamphlets, digital creatives, print, and social — so the identity works cumulatively, building brand memory over time. This is what moves a brand from a campaign to a system.
If It's Truffle,
It's Gusto.
Category Ownership · Brand Positioning
The Impact
What the Work
Made Possible
Category Ownership
Gusto now operates with the confidence of a category leader. Where the brand was previously one option among many, the positioning stakes a clear claim: if it's truffle, it's Gusto — and everything else feels like a compromise.
3 Ownable Brand Lines
Three taglines across usability, lifestyle, and category claim — each distinct, each memorable, each doing a different job. Together they form a verbal architecture consumers can feel, repeat, and remember.
Full Touchpoint Integration
Packaging, print, digital, and social all aligned — visual direction and verbal identity working together consistently across every surface the truffle range occupies. Not a campaign. A system that builds genuine consumer recall over time.