Custard apple and yuzu: Why Mastercard is adding taste to its brand experience
Having dealt with sight with the launch of its symbol logo and hearing with its brand sound, Mastercard is looking to push its brand positioning still further with the launch of its own taste.
By Sarah Vizard
Have you ever thought about what a brand might taste like? And not a food or drink brand like KitKat or Coca-Cola or McDonald’s, but a financial services brand?
That’s the question that Mastercard is now answering with the launch of its brand taste. Positioned as the ‘taste of Priceless’ (its brand platform), ite takes the form of two macarons – one in red and one yellow – that aim to portray the key attributes of the company’s personality, as well as harking back to its logo.
Conceptualised by Kreëmart, which dubs itself ‘artistic collaborators in the medium of sugar’, the macarons are meant to translate Mastercard’s brand identity into taste. To do that, it used the ‘Papillae Questionnaire’, which as Kreëmart’s website explains, “seeks to define the essence of a person or entity into a taste using an in-depth interview and scientifically proven set of questions”.
The tastes this methodology came up with were custard apple (the red macaron) and Japanese fruit yuzu (the yellow macaron). Mastercard believes these will appeal to the maximum number of people, while creating something unique and that uses flavours from around the world to tie into its global positioning.
As for how this reveals the brand personality, the red macaron stands for passion, which represents Mastercard’s commitment to helping people get closer to the things they love. The yellow macaron is meant to signify optimism – Mastercard’s efforts to make the world a better place.
