Commissioned by a group of young entrepreneurs and managers, Brandient has created Cuculand, a brand of universal vocation, yet inspired by the everyday life and feelings of contemporary Romanians.
Bucharest, September 2009
The first "embodiment" of this generous brand is Cuculand™ Ice Tea, already available throughout selected retail chains. The name Brandient has coined is not just memorable; it also instantly resonates with the lives of those living day by day in Cuculand™.
Positioned in attitude, militant spirit, cult-brand and premium quality, Cuculand™ can be "deciphered" alternatively as the world we live in, the world we want to escape to or the world waiting for us. The brand tagline "Pure and free" attracts the young at heart and the clever ones who have found a way to keep their love, imagination and humor intact, despite the daily avalanche of ugliness. Cuculand™ packaging instantly conveys the essence of the brand—purity and freedom.
Paraphrasing the wonderful words of Borges, one could say that 'we live in a driveled country where Cuculand is part of the reality'. But isn't this exactly what has driven us to create such an attractive brand?
—Aneta Bogdan, Managing Partner Brandient
An ultimately experimental brand, Cuculand™ has been launched using the online environment and the social networks. The site www.cuculand.ro is in itself a non-conventional communication approach as well as a fresh brand experience. The main brand communication driving force is the web, taking the form of the most unexpected and challenging situations.
Graphic identity, illustration and all applications are the result of extensive work by the entire Brandient team of designers (Cristian 'Kit' Paul, Cristian Petre, Bogdan Dumitrache, Eugen Erhan, Ciprian Badalan, Iancu Barbarasa). The TreeWorks team, led by Catalin Tenita, provided the site implementation, and Camil Tulcan mastered the video project for the site.
About Brandient
Brandient is an independent brand strategy and design consultancy founded in Bucharest in 2002 by Aneta Bogdan, Cristian Kit Paul and Mihai Bogdan — never part of a global network, working directly for the owners, CEOs and boards of its clients, with an all-senior team and category exclusivity. In over two decades the firm has created or rebuilt more than 300 brands, 279 of them published as case studies at brandient.com/work — from Romania’s national leaders to brands carried worldwide. The firm has been active in Southeast Asia for more than a decade. The work has earned 84 international awards and distinctions — most recently a Red Dot (2025) and two Graphis Golds (2026) — 64 documented mentions in international design books and publications, and, in 2015, a place among the inaugural inductees of the REBRAND Hall of Fame, alongside Interbrand and MetaDesign.
About Cuculand
Cuculand was a Romanian ice-tea brand created in 2009 for Trigento — an attitude brand, “Pure & Free” — whose packaging earned a Pentawards Bronze. The brand is no longer on the market: the Cuculand case.