Waterbase

India boasts about 1.2 million hectares of brackish water potential, of which ~10% is used for commercial purposes. This massive headroom and realization are acting as catalysts for the aquaculture industry as a whole. Shrimp farming, a subset within the aquaculture industry, has risen to the top as one of the most dynamic and lucrative businesses, as it supports the livelihoods of over 200000 farming families across Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, and Odisha, while also contributing to ~67% of marine export revenues.

However, it isn’t always a fairytale story. Disease outbreaks aren’t uncommon in the sphere, and they wreak havoc in the form of losses that mount up and beyond ₹7200cr yearly. This is further exacerbated by inconsistent farming practices, lower median literacy, and climate change acting as a barrier to productivity.

And Waterbase challenged the norm by championing a sustainable shrimp farming ecosystem on the pillars of empowerment and data-driven practices. Producing ~100000 MT of shrimp feed, processing about ~5000 MT of raw shrimp, and a post-larvae hatchery output of 250mn, Waterbase has made a significant investment to grow its operations. And now, they had their eyes set on building a relationship beyond transactions with their consumers.

They set out on a journey to make nutrition, feed, and farming solutions accessible and engaging to those who needed it the most - the farmers - by bridging the gap between experience and innovation. Influenced by D’Art’s expertise in developing brand-consumer space through experiential retail, Waterbase decided to partner with us.

The Challenge

With Waterbase as our partner, we went to the drawing board to build an accurate picture of where the brand currently stands. We developed an extensive consumer, market, product, and competition research program, executed it, and found that Waterbase had a communication gap on two fronts - B2B & B2C.

●      Lack of visual and experiential aids had made it an uphill battle for the integrated B2B sales team, as the B2B sales team had to rely on the script, and the customer’s willingness to listen, to explain Waterbase’s data-backed product benefits.

●      The above-mentioned gap was also present in B2C spaces, as customers could not understand product benefits without visually aided educational content.

●      As consumers demanded experiential spaces, Waterbase’s presence was uninspiring and didn’t organically nudge the consumers to touch-and-feel the products.

●      Due to the absence of o2o (online-to-offline) interventions, the brand’s visibility and ability to scale across markets were hampered.

Our Hands On

Post our research, the objective was clear. We were supposed to blend functional elements with storytelling, all encompassed under a phygital-based experience center. Thus, we designed Waterbase’s Global Retail Design Identity to do exactly that.

We divided store’s layout into distinct sections, all catering to deliver a particular result, and they are,

●      We developed a product placement space to boost customer intel and hands-on learning by utilizing color-coded packaging alongside real samples.

●      By utilizing graphic-based communication, we reimagined a space as an experience wall that imparts knowledge on all stages of shrimp production, and the right Waterbase product to use for it.

●      We developed a dedicated hospitality section that covered nearly 25% of the area in-store. Featuring a lounge area with a Visual Interface Program that is meant to educate consumers about ‘Shrip World, this area was designed by keeping Waterbase’s Client Engagement Specialist in the center.

We also used digital-based interventions like Ultima AI and heatmaps to further optimize the experience for Waterbase’s customers. These techs assisted us in capturing in-store headcount, demographics, zone counting, consumers cool level, staff exclusion, adult/children differentiation, and WIFI-based analytics suite powered by Ultima AI.