Kitukuu Interiors
Naming / Rebranding / Digital Presence
Helping a local furniture company adapt to change
Problem
Their biggest challenge was differentiating themselves from other local furniture producers as a producer of high quality custom made furniture.
Locally made furniture has had a reputation for poor quality and use of low standards of building materials. Due to the Pandemic situation in early 2020 the demand for furniture had increased but in-store sales were bound to slow down.
Objective
– Transition to fully online from their physical store.
– “Start over” with a completely new identity.
– Use social media marketing to drive local sales.
Execution
From a discovery session, rebranding became the most effective direction. They saw the need to fully transition to online retail where a growing amount of business came through in the past year and where clients would certainly adapt due to the pandemic.
They felt they needed to get a name that better reflects their mission and values. They wanted a visual identity and communication that is bold and clear about them being a local African brand.
Inspiration
Through the rebrand, M&L Interiors wanted to present themselves as a bold, youthful local brand. They also wanted to be known as experts in the furniture space producing high quality products.
They chose between two distinct stylescapes (named Bauhaus and Timeless) as creative directions through which the brand would be able to be presented.
Application
We worked with them to find a name that best captured both the history and the spirit behind their brand. Kitukuu can simultaneously mean ‘Something Great’ and ‘Great gand-child’ in Kiswahili.
Something great reflects the kinds of products they produce and Grandchild reflects the heritage of furniture making present in the founders’ ancestry, they being a grandchild of a furniture make.
We developed a visual identity that was mean to be bold and simple. It needed to express confidence and creativity in the simplest way possible.
Results
The rebranding process was enlightening for the founders getting to understand their brand and customers better, and for us learning more about the furniture business in Kenya.
We did a four-week social media relaunch of the brand that saw a significant increase in engagement and number of organic page likes and follows over the next 6 months.
The rebrand was followed by an increase in the number of enquiries and much higher conversions to sale than before. That led to an increase in sales of over 2x over the next 12 months.
