Oggi Corp. is headed to The Inspired Home Show to unveil a new lifestyle-focused brand identity for its entertaining, beverage and kitchen accessory collections.
Updated Oggi branding flows from the company’s new Oggi California flagship operating identity intended to illuminate the company’s U.S. West Coast roots as a foundation for the brand’s evolved lifestyle ethos.
The new Oggi branding features a restyled logo and lifestyle packaging, but it extends much wider. Marketing collateral for the brand across all media emphasizes images of youthful, active people representative of a prime demographic base the company wants to engage with new branding and messaging designed to convey authenticity, relevance, fun and affordability, said Will Symonds, president of Oggi.
Oggi Revolving Liquor Dispenser
Symonds said a key objective of the updated brand and marketing identity was to give the Oggi brand more “personality” centered on such qualities as honesty, friendliness, quirkiness and passion.
“Our new visual identity is more youthful, and it’s simple and honest,” Symonds told HomePage News. “The people featured in the marketing are fun and welcoming: People who enjoy life. The idea is to present Oggi as fun and approachable. The products are still very important, but what may be even more important is how these products suit lifestyles that bring people together.”
The new Oggi logo is composed in contemporary lower-case letters. Rounded letter shaping combines with angled marks over each letter convey a sense of good-natured motion. The “O” in the logo is featured separately across the new marketing program as a distinguishing brand icon.
The Oggi name, a play on the first name of company Founder and Chairman Aji Das, translates to “today” in Italian. That inspired the brand’s new slogan, “Life Starts Today,” Symonds said.
Symonds joined Oggi Corp. as president in late 2020 after several years at the helm of the U.S. operation of multi-brand kitchenware marketer DKB Household. Das founded Oggi in 1993 as a follow-up to his previous A.K. Das business, and he led Oggi’s diversification and expansion into an expansive range of imported entertaining, kitchen and beverage wares.
The Oggi management team includes company veterans Paul Williamson, vice president, and Steve Curtis, national sales manager; and industry sales veteran Debi Sapolin, who joined in 2020 as director of business development.
Oggi Management Team: L-R, Steve Curtis, Paul Williamson, Aji Das, Debi Sapolin, Will Symonds
The rollout of the new Oggi branding culminates almost a year-long initiative to apply the company’s longstanding, fast-to-market, low-cost product sourcing strengths to a fresh, lively and more unified strategic product development and marketing platform.
We wanted to position the brand around lifestyle and affordability.” Symonds said. “Oggi has always benefitted from its pragmatic approach to business. The company has been able to move fast, often recognizing hot trends and key items before many larger companies… and do it affordably. That’s a key part of the Oggi DNA. That doesn’t change.”
The new Oggi brand platform, Symonds said, is organized into several consumer-aligned category themes: Barware, Bar Cart (design-forward barware), Fresh (food storage), Prep, Brew (coffee and tea accessories), Bathroom, Refresh (hydration and travel drinkware), Neat (kitchen storage), Sink (sink accessories) and Serve. Oggi plans to introduce 89 products at The Inspired Home Show (including the Groove Double Wall Vacuum Insulated Cocktail Shaker), Symonds added.
Oggi Modernist Bar Cart collection
Oggi Drawer Organizer
“The trade knows Oggi very well, but Oggi is also a consumer brand,” he continued. “There are tens of thousands of unique searches online for Oggi every month. We started thinking about Oggi even more as a brand. Consumers look for affordably priced, good-quality products. The thing that binds all Oggi products together is how they enhance lifestyles affordably and at high quality.”
Symonds said the pandemic, while fueling overall demand for the Oggi products, also encouraged the company and the Oggi brand to interact more frequently with consumers by advancing its social media and digital marketing and commerce capabilities.
“Manufacturers often talk about features and benefits, but we want to convey how you feel when you use the product. That’s what engages consumers on social media and online,” Symonds said. “The pandemic gave us an opportunity to connect directly with the consumer, and that can be very helpful to our retail customers.”
