Case study20254 min read

One consumer-health brand, nine markets, and no more redrawing

Nine market teams were rebuilding the same brand by hand, and approved claims drifted between countries. We turned the brand into tokens, templates and a claims library, then added an agent that flags drift before a person reviews.

Client
A consumer-health brand sold in nine markets
Sector
Consumer health
Duration
6–9 months
Year
2025
Disciplines
Blister packs of tablets and capsules in red, white and blue, piled together.
Every pack, in every market, built from the same parts.Photo: Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

The engagement in figures

markets on one brand system
9
claims library with approval history
1
disciplines in one team
3
assets an agent can approve on its own
0

Chapter 01 / 04

The challenge.

The briefHold one brand across nine markets without slowing any of them down.

Nine markets sold the same portfolio under the same name, and almost nothing else was shared. Each market adapted packs and campaigns locally, usually by redrawing from the last thing that looked right. Local partners rebuilt layouts that already existed. Colours shifted between printers. Type sizes on regulatory panels varied from country to country.

The bigger risk sat in the words. A claim approved by one market’s regulatory reviewer was copied into another market’s assets, where it had never been approved. Nobody could say which claims were cleared where, so every asset went through the full review again, and reviewers spent their time catching drift instead of judging what was new.

The brief was to make the right thing the easy thing for local teams, and to keep every approval decision with the people accountable for it.

A pharmacist in a white coat reaching for a medicine box on a pharmacy shelf.
Where the brand meets the customer: the shelf, in nine versions.Photo: National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

Chapter 02 / 04

Our approach.

A hand with a pen over an open notebook, a laptop on the meeting table behind it.
The audit came first: every difference between markets, written down and sorted into needed or drifted.Photo: Sarah Elizabeth on Unsplash

We started with an audit, not a style guide. Across the nine markets we collected the assets in circulation, laid them side by side and marked every difference: the ones the market needed, and the ones that had simply crept in.

That audit gave us the rule that shaped everything after it: decide what must be identical, decide what may flex, and write both down. The mark, colour roles, type scale and pack hierarchy became fixed. Language length, regulatory panels and imagery became flex rules with clear limits, agreed with each market lead.

Claims got the same treatment. Instead of living inside finished artwork, each claim became a record: the wording, the evidence, and the markets where it is approved, with the reviewer and the date. The brand-check agent was built last, and tested on past assets before it saw a new one.

The process

How the engagement ran, step by step. Phases overlap where the work allowed it.

  1. 01Weeks 1–4

    Audit

    Every live pack and asset across the nine markets, laid out on one grid, each difference marked as needed or drifted.

  2. 02Weeks 5–10

    Rules

    Fixed, flexible and local: three tiers written down and agreed with each market lead.

  3. 03Weeks 11–20

    System

    Tokens, pack templates and the claims library, published as a living guidelines site.

  4. 04Weeks 16–24

    Agent

    The brand-check agent, tested on past assets before it saw a new one.

  5. 05Months 6–9

    Rollout

    Market by market, with a person approving every asset the agent flags.

Chapter 03 / 04

What we built.

Hands typing on a laptop at a wooden desk, a grid of photographs on the screen.
Flex rules, written down: what a market may change, and what it never does.Photo: Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

The brand now lives as a system rather than a set of files. Design tokens carry colour, type and spacing into packaging templates, campaign layouts and the living guidelines site, so a change made once reaches every market.

Local teams build from templates that already know the flex rules. A market can set its own language and regulatory panel; it cannot move the hierarchy or invent a colour.

The claims library sits underneath. When a team places a claim, it can only choose wording approved for that market. Anything else goes to the market’s reviewer as a request, with the evidence attached.

The brand-check agent reads each asset before it reaches review. It compares the layout with the rules and every claim with the library, then flags drift with the reason and the rule it breaks. It never approves anything. A person signs off every asset, and every check, flag and decision is written to an audit log.

The system, as people see it

An illustrative drawing of the screen the work made: where the agent does its part, and where a person decides.

  • Passed
  • Flagged
  • To a person

An illustrative screen, “Brand check · Market DE · Carton front, version 3”: Colour roles (passed): Primary and accent colours match the token values.; Pack hierarchy (passed): Mark, product name and strength in the fixed order.; Type on the regulatory panel (passed): At or above the market’s minimum size.; Claim “Long-lasting relief” (flagged): Approved for two markets in the claims library, not for DE.; Decision (to a person): Sent to the DE reviewer with the flag, the rule it breaks and the evidence..

Illustrative. The agent checks and flags; the market’s reviewer decides, and every decision is logged.

What we delivered

  1. Brand guidelines as a living site
  2. Design tokens and pack templates
  3. Claims library with approval history
  4. Brand-check agent and audit log

Platforms we used

  • Figma
  • Storybook
  • TypeScript

Technologies we work with. Naming one never implies a partnership.

The story, continued

Why the agent flags and never fixes

An agent that quietly corrects artwork hides the problem it found. We designed this one to explain: every flag names the rule, shows the asset beside the reference, and leaves the decision with the market team and its reviewer. That keeps accountability where the regulation puts it, and it turns each flag into a small lesson about the system.

Decide what must be identical, decide what may flex, and write both down.

In pictures · 4

Chapter 04 / 04

Results.

Measured by

Figures are published here once the client approves them.

  1. Assets passing brand review first time
  2. Brief-to-approved time per market
  3. Share of assets built from templates

What it is built to change

The system is built so that every market starts from the same parts instead of the last file that looked right; so that drift is flagged before an asset reaches a reviewer, leaving reviewers the questions that need a judgement; and so that the claims library answers “is this approved here?” at the moment a claim is placed.

Whether it does is measured by the three numbers above, tracked per market from the first wave of the rollout. They are published here once the client approves them.

Where this lives

Let’s build what happens next.

Tell us what you’re building. We’ll answer straight.

Book a discovery call

Three ways to start

  1. 01About 2 minutes

    A quick question

    You get A reply from a lead, not a sales queue

  2. 02About 8 minutesMost useful

    A project brief

    You get Options and a first scope after one call

  3. 03About 15 minutes

    A formal RFQ or RFP

    You get Receipt confirmed and a named bid lead

Every engagement starts with a written scope and a quote agreed before work begins. How each package is priced

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