Rename India's leading debt marketplace and create a brand architecture broad enough to support its expanding product ecosystem. We took a cultural lens to finance, exploring trust as the real currency. "Yubi" emerged as the solution.
Hunter's was losing ground to 'aspirational' competitors. Through ethnographic research, we uncovered a powerful cultural truth: South African youth admired action over ambition. We built a repositioning around this insight.
Launch an American icon into a saturated market and make it feel like it had always belonged. We tapped into South Africa's nostalgia for American pop culture and built a campaign that invited the country to bring the launch date forward.
Reposition South Africa's leading cider brand without losing existing equity and re-engage an audience drifting toward more 'aspirational' competitors. The brief came at a moment of category flux. Premium imports were entering, and Hunter's needed to find a new cultural meaning before the window closed.
Led strategy across a multi-agency team. My work began with deep ethnographic research into South African youth culture, looking at not just what they said but what they did, admired, and aspired to. A key finding emerged: young South Africans admired action more than ambition. The strategy was to turn Hunter's into a brand that helps people start something real.
The resulting "Start Something" platform inspired consumers to pursue side hustles and passion projects. Hunter's partnered with local artists, launched songwriting contests, and ran 28 live events across South Africa. The brand became an active cultural enabler rather than a passive beverage.
"I'm absolutely loving this campaign — it's an amazing opportunity for artists to get into the music industry, and to get guidance and support from people who really want to help." — DJ Mo Flava
The ability to translate deep audience tension into brand energy and drive action across research, positioning, and integrated campaign delivery. This is the kind of work that only happens when cultural insight and strategic clarity come together.
Launch an American icon into a saturated South African market and make it feel like it had always belonged. The challenge wasn't introducing a product, but introducing a feeling that South Africans had grown up around through pop culture without ever tasting.
Led strategic development for a full-scale market entry. The key insight: South Africans didn't know the taste, but they knew the feeling from 80s sitcoms, New York coffee cups, and dreams of American cool. Rather than importing meaning, we reinterpreted it for a local audience raised on U.S. pop culture.
We turned a doughnut launch into a cultural moment. Drawing on South Africa's nostalgic love for American pop culture, we built a campaign that felt both familiar and fresh. Fans were invited to "bring the launch date forward" through social challenges, stunts, and content creation: cut-out coffee cup selfies, the world's smallest Dunkin' pop-up, viral stunts, and live radio. Some fans even got actual Dunkin' tattoos.
The ability to craft cultural relevance at speed, balancing big brand storytelling with laser-focused commercial outcomes. Strategy designed for impact, excitement, and queues around the block.
Rename India's leading debt marketplace and create a brand architecture broad enough to support its expanding product ecosystem, from co-lending to collections, while staying usable, memorable, and rooted in trust.
Led cultural insight and strategic naming to drive a complete brand transformation. This was as much about rethinking what money means as it was about rebranding. We needed a name and identity that could stretch across multiple dimensions: from infrastructure to innovation, from enterprise clients to emerging markets, from India to the world.
We took a cultural lens to finance, looking at what people do with money and what it means to them. From the history of debt to the mythologies of exchange, we explored trust as the real currency. "Yubi" emerged as a name rooted in ubiquity—short, global, and graceful. It gave the business a human tone in a high-stakes category. We then created a flexible brand architecture to house multiple product lines and future growth paths.
"This is an exciting transformation and a solid foundation for the constantly evolving nature of our business. Yubi represents the beginning of our global ambitions." — Gaurav Kumar, Founder & CEO, Yubi
Big-picture thinking for high-growth environments. Deep cultural strategy paired with sharp naming and architecture can unlock clarity, confidence, and commercial velocity. Brand isn't just what you say. It's the system you build to scale.