At Honest, organic Tanzanian beans are carefully selected before being roasted in the brand’s kitchen in Cape Town. Only two simple ingredients go into making Honest Chocolate: the cacao and a natural sweetener. No place for added cane sugar nor dairy. The brand claims to offer a “bean to bar” experience, fully ethical and carbon neutral for the continent.
Honest Chocolate is also an artistic brand. From its beginnings in 2014, the brand uses its chocolate bar packagings as an artistic media, displaying artworks of local artists. See below the painting of Amy Lee-Tak, a self-taught South African artist. Honest Chocolate goes all the way and currently sells the artworks as NFTs. Each NFT contains a 12 months 10% discount code for any purchase via the online store.
Honest Chocolate is also an educational brand. It aims at bringing and conveying a knowledge around chocolate: how to make it, how to taste it, how to cook it, etc. For example, the brand proposes virtual and physical chocolate workshops in their Cape Town production kitchen. Thanks to these events and communication, consumers learn how to become chocolate experts.
Why is it inspiring?
Connoisseurs’ brands are on the rise in Africa, especially in the luxury and FMCG sectors: wines and spirits, delicatessen, fashion, jewelry, etc. Consumers show a real thirst for knowledge and education to become genuine connoisseurs. They want to be able to talk about the brand and the product, and to acquire the right gestures to taste or to wear something. It is not surprising that the international chocolate brand Barry Callebaut has just launched in Casablanca last month an “Académie du Chocolat”, offering exclusive chocolate tastings.
Fine chocolate is seen as a mean to elevate socially, through tasting, knowledge around it and art. In a few years, we can easily imagine the Honest Chocolate café in Cape Town filled with artworks from artists who have collaborated with the brand, in the same way as an art gallery.
Exclusiveness is treated here in a very friendly and humble way, which makes the brand all the more enjoyable. The “honest” way of being exclusive…!
Take-outs for brands
Be an art patron brand. Luxury brands are already very much into art and culture, but consumer goods' brands should explore artistic collaborations more often and in an easier way. It would enrich their brand content and their communication strategy.
Work exclusiveness, singularity and mastery with friendliness and humility.
