Canderel — From Ingredient Defence To Emotional Liberation
We gave people a reason to want Canderel again.
Initial Problem
Canderel, a global leader in sweeteners, was facing growing negative publicity and consumer concern around health and artificial sweeteners.
The instinctive response was to defend the product: explain the ingredient, reassure consumers and provide rational arguments around safety and functionality.
But this created a strategic trap.
The more the brand talked about the ingredient, the more it kept the controversy at the centre of the conversation. Instead of rebuilding desire, the brand was reinforcing the very frame it needed to escape.
The challenge was not simply to make people believe in the product again.
It was to give people a reason to want Canderel again.
Diagnostic Insight
THE WHEEL OF MOTIVES® was used to move beyond the functional debate and decode the deeper emotional role Canderel could play in people's lives.
The analysis revealed a powerful combination of motives:
SEEK — liberation, lightness and freedom from restriction.
TRANSFORM — the ability to change an everyday experience, quickly and almost magically.
This reframed the brand completely.
Canderel was not fundamentally about sweetener.
It was about effortless transformation.
A small gesture could bypass a restriction, change the taste of a coffee, drink or food — and with it, change the experience and even the mood.
Intervention
The strategy shifted Canderel away from defending what the product contains toward dramatizing what the brand enables.
Canderel is not simply a product. It is a device — almost a notion.
With one effortless gesture, it gives people the freedom to transform an experience. A click, a sprinkle, a small intervention — and something ordinary becomes more pleasurable, lighter and more personally theirs.
Almost effortlessly. Almost magically.
This emotional territory provided a new strategic foundation for the brand, reconnecting its functional benefit with the deeper human motives of SEEK and TRANSFORM.
Instead of asking consumers to think about sweeteners, Canderel could invite them to think about possibility, liberation and transformation.
This emotional territory provided a new strategic foundation for the brand, reconnecting its functional benefit with the deeper human motives of SEEK and TRANSFORM.
Instead of asking consumers to think about sweeteners, Canderel could invite them to think about possibility, liberation and transformation.
Before Vs After
BEFORE
AFTER
OUTCOME
The new emotional direction gave the brand the confidence to communicate boldly again, including a return to television.
+38%
Top-of-Mind Awareness
2×
Social media engagement
Double-digit
Sales growth in key countries
A confident return
to TV communication
The Principle
When a brand is under attack, defending the product can unintentionally reinforce the problem.
People do not build relationships with ingredients. They build relationships with what brands allow them to feel, become and do.
THE WHEEL OF MOTIVES® helps uncover that deeper role.
For Canderel, the breakthrough came from moving beyond “What is this product made of?” to a much more powerful question:
“What does this brand liberate in people's lives?”
The answer transformed Canderel from a sweetener that needed defending into a brand about freedom, lightness and effortless transformation.
Review relevant materials
Canderel Brand Platform
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Film Canderel Sucrette 2024
When a brand understands its emotional truth, every execution has a stronger foundation.
BRAND AVIATORS helped the Canderel team define its strategic Brand DNA—the motivational territory and meaning that could guide the brand across its touchpoints.
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