Rasta positioned ‘Black Bow’, a homegrown whiskey brand, to target the self-made modern Indian man with an honest mindset.

Their problem statement was that larger brands were blocking the market share at retail. The Indian whiskey premium-segment market is largely crowded with popular players like Blender’s Pride, Antiquity, Rockford Reserve, Signature etc.  How does a homegrown upstart cut through these years of trust and legacy?

Before building the strategy, Rasta went to a bunch of licensed wholesale dealers aka thekas for market research and performed qualitative research amongst 25-35 year old men to understand the target market.
Based on the psychographic segmentation from our research, we built the Black Bow persona.

In the alcohol universe, values like success, freedom and style were deep rooted amongst the male-skewed audience set and to break the clutter, we had to steer towards something unique but also relatable.

Unfolding the behaviour of the modern Indian man who is an independent thinker but also respects where he comes from opened up various doors for the brand to take a position in but the most important untapped scruple was ‘honesty’. 

Black Bow is positioned as ‘Made the right way’ in the premium segment created with honest ingredients and transparent processes. 

The strategy once defined was poured into design.

Functioning as an authoritative, proud & truthful brand, the colour system, typography and the mono carton were designed in tandem with the brand’s new personality.