Seattle Chocolate, founded in 1991, nearly met its end just one decade into business after the Nisqually Earthquake destroyed its manufacturing facility.
Jean Thompson, one of about a dozen of the company’s investors at the time, stepped in to save it. She became the owner, salvaging the machines and transferring operations to another location. Six weeks later, when the CEO quit, she assumed that position too — and never looked back.
In the more than two decades since, the company has grown from about 35 to 75 employees, does approximately $20 million in annual revenue, gives 10% net profits to fund projects to improve the lives of cocoa farmers and became carbon neutral in 2022.
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Now the company is undergoing a bold, imaginative rebrand, announced earlier this month — and changing its name to Maeve.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Maeve
“In other regions, while we could get distribution, the consumers didn’t pull it off the shelf.”
Thompson had never liked the name Seattle Chocolate, noting it felt too limiting and regionally tied. ”The data was there that we did really well in our own backyard, in the Pacific Northwest,” Thompson explains, “but in other regions, while we could get distribution, the consumers didn’t pull it off the shelf.”
But the company had been Seattle Chocolate for over 20 years. Thompson thought the time to revamp its name had come and gone.
However, a conversation with her daughter Ellie Thompson, the company’s brand manager, changed her perspective. “She said, ‘I love Seattle Chocolate, but it’s not cool,'” Thompson recalls.
Thompson agreed, and eager to make the brand appealing to new audiences like Gen Z, she set out to give it a makeover.
“ I’m an evergreen company,” Thompson says. “I don’t want to flip; I don’t want to just sell the company. I want to invest in it in a way that it will be around forever because I think that’s when you really can make a difference.”
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“[It’s] this really whimsical [design], and it almost takes you to a place of fantasy.”
Few people know that the company is woman-owned, so they wanted to lead with a name indicating that, Thompson says. Still, landing on the company’s new name and branding took about a year — and wasn’t without its challenges.
Ultimately, Thompson worked with three different agencies on the rebrand. The first agency gave them a name that a lot of people liked, but Thompson wasn’t sold. In the end, they couldn’t get the trademark, so it was back to the drawing board.
A second agency would help with the brand’s new name. Thompson quipped to the team that the “chocolate goddess” had been looking out for her by preventing the trademark, and that set them down a new creative path: goddess names. “Maeve” was one of them — and it resonated on dual fronts.
“She is a first-century Irish warrior queen who believes women are equals,” Thompson says, “and whenever I tell that story, I go like, ‘Wow. Novel concept.’ She also [hailed] from the region of Ireland that my grandparents were from. So I’m like, I think she’s my girl.”
Image Credit: Courtesy of Maeve
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Thompson worked with a third agency to create the branding design that exists today.
Now, Maeve’s colorful homepage, dynamic with illustrations of waves, a ship and a mermaid, invites visitors to “Come with us to a faraway land” before giving way to another display that reintroduces Seattle Chocolate as Maeve, “where ethical meets delicious.”
“[It’s] this really whimsical [design], and it almost takes you to a place of fantasy,” Thompson says. Chocolate itself is always an escape, Thompson adds, but Maeve’s new branding offers consumers another layer of escapism: replete with “tongue-in-cheek” product descriptions and a fun cast of characters.
“You can build a whole fantasy world,” Thompson explains. “[The agency] even developed a map for us. We want to blow the doors off of how chocolate’s ever been marketed before.”
“You have to follow your gut because you are setting the course for this specific company.”
Several factors have helped Maeve pull off an effective rebrand so far, according to Thompson.
First, Thompson made sure to involve teams across the entire company in the process from the very beginning. It was important to get any fears and concerns out in the open so they could be addressed, Thompson says.
The team also had to analyze every aspect of the then-current product line. The reevaluation led to some changes, like swapping the “truffle” designation to “bonbon” and axing certain flavors that were cumbersome to produce. Allowing ample time to refine the product offering — which took about three years for Maeve — helped lay a solid foundation for the rebrand.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Maeve
Communicating the change to the company’s loyal customers was also essential and sometimes challenging.
Consumers in the Pacific Northwest who’d loved the chocolate for years felt somewhat “betrayed” by the name change, Thompson explains. Maeve has met the “little bit of negative blowback” with a promise to provide the same quality product and commitment to its values.
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A critical lesson Thompson’s learned over the course of Maeve’s rebrand — and one she recommends all entrepreneurs take to heart — is just how important it is to listen to your instincts.
“You have to follow your gut because you are setting the course for this specific company,” Thompson says. “You are the engine. If you don’t trust yourself, then you’re going to misstep and be mad at yourself. If you trust yourself, [even if] you follow your gut and you fail, [at least you can say], ‘But that’s what I thought was right.'”
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