Devonia were looking to expand and grow. We helped them reframe their brand and increase their business value.
Devonia is an owner-managed spring water supplier with a difference. In 2005 Neil Graham founded the company with the bold idea that washing and reusing glass bottles would make a great environmental impact. Since then, they’ve calculated that their process saves roughly 94% of the CO2 emissions and energy costs of recycling. Their problem? Telling the world.
Wash – Refill – Deliver – Collect. And repeat. Over a decade of business shows that Devonia’s model is viable – profitable even. But with branding that blended in and failed to attract more high-end customers, growth was proving to be difficult. “Help us tell our story” was, as usual, the plea. Bringing Devonia’s ‘so-simple-it’s genius’ process to the fore with a personality and image that could sustain a more mass appeal was our challenge.
What Upshot did
Strategic thinking
We helped Devonia unpack the qualities and priorities that make them special. Just like a milkman, Devonia’s drivers are more than couriers – they meet customers regularly and become well known faces. Their brand needed to reflect human qualities, a key part of what we felt was missing in the old identity.
We analysed the concept of innovation within their service. Doing something that nobody else is doing (well, one other company in the UK) isn’t necessarily innovative. In fact it was more like the old normal than the new. But there is still something bold and pioneering about doing something brilliantly that makes so much practical sense and this needed to be reflected.
And of course, the sustainability angle is one that has guided their practice for nearly 20 years. But with a lot of noise surrounding environmental businesses, and the credentials that come with that, it was important not to appear to be jumping on the bandwagon. This has been at the heart of Devonia since the beginning.
Visual identity
The big idea revolved around, well, revolving. Showing a cyclical process needed a cyclical motif. Having unpacked a brand that is known for being seriously personal, environmentally respectful and pragmatically remarkable, the styling needed to practically reflect each of these pillars.
A human touch meant it couldn’t be too clinical or neat – rougher edges or inconsistent lines would help. A rustic tone and texture could juxtapose well with our planet’s famous colour scheme of blue and green. And practically speaking, a neat and tidy layout without bells and whistles would be needed to suggest class, restraint and quality without posing as a fancy or pretentious luxury brand.
“Rethinking our brand went beyond just the label and website. We didn't expect that this process would give us a solid way to visually and verbally articulate a value system that has sustained us for twenty years and will help us thrive for another twenty."
Impact
Our earlier design of an ‘infinite loop’ themed infographic in 2022 helped Devonia explain their process in a visual way that gained them over 30 new customers straight away. This gave Neil and Fi the confidence to invest in the rebrand, knowing that when their audience understood the impact of Devonia’s environmental credentials it would open up far more opportunities. Our brand strategy sessions and messaging have helped them unlock funding to continue with their exciting growth plan, and with the new labels now out in the wild, a PR campaign with RAW PR has contributed to a clamour to stock their products in some of the most sought-after venues in the South West.
Devonia in the news
Devonia is revolutionising hydration with reuse, not just recycle
Via Plymouth Herald
