About
Laila was born as ethnic rice brand with ‘authentic’ sourcing credentials. Established in 1996 to initially bring high quality Basmati Rice to the rice-eating Asian community in the UK, the past decades has seen the Laila Rice brand grow in popularity and reach to become one of the country’s best-selling Basmati rice brands of UK. It is UK’s Top 3 brand three years in a row (Neilson data)

Challenge
As loyal Laila customers were evolving from Gen X to Millennial (in the last 25 years), there was a shift in their outlook: cultural beliefs, customs, social status and disposable incomes. It was inevitable to have a new positioning of the brand to connect with millennial aspirations. At the same time, the brand was undergoing market expansion (entering into mainstream market) with an increased product line. It became critical to facelift the brand and communicate it to its target audience (new as well as old) with renewed brand energy – look & feel.

Solution
We realigned our creative strategy and carried out rebranding process through systematic brand audit and brand repositioning. We carved out research-based profile of our buyer persona. Transformed from “Love Rice, Love Laila to Love Laila, Naturally reflecting millennial aspiration and natural credentials”. It depicts ‘evolved me’- contemporary, modern yet rooted in the values of love, family bonds and socially responsible. It also enabled us the flexibility to bring the entire range under the single umbrella – pulses, grains, spices, nuts, all with natural credentials.
We also underwent website transformation with redefined brand personality, product information, SEO rich content and improved functionalities – Submit Your Recipe form, Contest page for interactivity.

Impact
The brand has shown 34% y-o-y growth in the dry rice category. The highest in the top 10 rice of UK market. The brand introduced 100% Green packaging for its 2 kg range. The biggest impact came with the placement of Laila rice range in the mainstream aisles in TESCO.

Website traffic: 1500 per month to 4500 per month
FB followers: 1890 to 2958
INSTA followers: 2605 to 3522