Air Wick’s Botanica brand has launched a new premium range, Botanica Origins, to meet a growing demand for luxury and sophistication in mass air care.
Introduced to market with a set of luxury scented candles, Botanica Origins draws on the expertise in innovation by parent brand Reckitt and weaves a rich brand story to connect with increasingly engaged users.
Darren Morgan, Global Lead, Brand Experience & Strategy at Reckitt, says: “Users within air care are always looking for new and sophisticated scents. Moving beyond the purely functional, they want their air care to provide indulgent moments and little luxuries, but in a way that’s responsibly minded. Because Botanica Origins is our first move into that premium tier, we needed to create a new and compelling proposition, with a brand story that would speak to younger, highly engaged Botanica customers.”
Inspired by Air Wick’s mastery of fragrance, the brand story centres on a union of people, places, and plants to reveal nature’s true beauty in exquisite fragrance. Botanica Origins takes its characteristics from the archetype of a botanist explorer, with expertise in plants and everything that makes the earth so varied and special.
Bringing terroir to home fragrance
The brand story also introduces the idea of terroir within air care, to highlight that the range is not just about a fragrance but about its wider context – the farming practices, growers and specific growth habitats that give an ingredient its unique characters. The brand’s Madagascan vanilla, for example, enjoys year-round sunshine and is cured for four months.
Morgan explains: “The concept of terroir is very important in categories like wine and chocolate. During the craft boom of the late 2000s, we started to see terroir popping up in various different categories. You can see it referred to in fine fragrance but less so in mass. So, the use of terroir allows us to create a lovely new space between the two. It immediately adds a touch of luxury and tells a much richer story of location and provenance. It also ties in with the wider brand purpose at Air Wick of elevating people’s homes through the best smelling fragrances – using its unique blend of creativity, knowledge and appreciation to create amazing fragrance experiences.”
Created in collaboration with Design Bridge and Partners, the core brand strategy of people, places and plants and the notion of terroir informed the whole visual expression of the new range. The pack design is inspired by a botanist scrapbook – a collage composition of photography, abstract watercolours and graphical elements created in a detailed labour of love.
Informed by nature
The brand identity also includes a new logo inspired by nature, featuring flicks and flourishes that look like unfurling leaves. Other elements are a ‘B’ monogram and a beautifully drawn stamp device to signal the range’s promise of ‘fragrances infused with natural, responsibly sourced ingredients’.
Botanica Origins’ visual style represents the idea of ‘Botany of Desire’. It celebrates the elements that come together to create the fragrance, as well as the feeling evoked by the product. Its tone of voice, meanwhile, conveys ‘curious’, ‘joie de vivre’ and ‘savoir-faire’, narrating the brand story in an engaging way.
Morgan explains: “At the heart of this project is superior innovation – a product that delivers to those people who are looking for a sense of luxury and warmth from their home fragrance. We have brought this to life through craft and storytelling, attention to detail and a multi-layered brand world that makes the product stand out as something much better than the everyday.”
Emma Ryan, client business director, Design Bridge and Partners says: “The storytelling supports the premium feel of the range – the fact that its products provide something beyond the day-to-day. Botanica has gone to the effort of carefully sourcing the ingredients from a variety of regions, so we wanted to celebrate that story in everything we do visually and verbally.”
Botanica Origins is being rolled out initially in Australia with three luxury scented candles, Madagascan Vanilla, French Clary Sage and Sri Lankan Cinnamon.
