How do you pull together a new brand from scratch in a way that creates a broad, well-rounded brand with a clear identity that is expressed in the day-to-day activities of the business? Here’s a live example:
The branding process is without a doubt one of the most exciting things we get to be a part of – taking a product or service backed by people with dreams and a vision, understanding it and its audience in depth and then taking it apart and putting it back together piece by piece. Somehow the final result always amazes us.
We spend a lot of time explaining our branding process, especially the fact that it doesn’t only involve graphic design of one element or another, but an all-encompassing process that constructs an entire identity that is integrated into the day-to-day activities of the company with complete synergy and creates an entire brand with a strong presence and character.
Here’s a small taste from one of the projects we completed recently and what went through our heads as we worked on it. But first, one important point we need to cover before we get started: our branding process is usually meant for companies that have already covered a certain distance in their development, having already established some sort of character and figured out who they are and what they’re aiming for. The reason for this is that effective branding has to include the day-to-day activities of the business and small businesses at the beginning of their journeys don’t always know what their next step will be, making branding very difficult.
But in this case we did something we don’t usually do: branding for a brand new business. This meant that we had to pay relatively close attention to the business side of things as well, and find ways to wrap the brand and the business one inside the other.
The task and the challenge
Padre e Madre is a business run by a couple who reached retirement but instead of resting, they looked for more opportunities to accomplish something. They loved to cook and since they had all the time in the world to sit in the kitchen, have a drink and talk, cooking was what they decided they wanted to do.
But they were just two pensioners. They couldn’t run a restaurant and didn’t want to stand at the stove around the clock – they also wanted to live a good life alongside their small business.
That’s why, along with the branding itself, our challenge was to create a business that was suitable to them and create a product that matched its environment.
The environment
Tel Aviv is a city where everyone has a place, provided they have enough of an interesting personality. Within this environment, it is critical to go through a proper and precise branding process.
The solution
Let’s see: there was almost no marketing budget, a restaurant wasn’t an option and a regular delivery service wasn’t very realistic either.
In these conditions, our solution was comprised of two elements:
- Branding – meant to create the persona that would make the audience in Tel Aviv fall in love with the company and buy its products of their own initiative.
- Business – including planning the disposition and concept that would allow the company to exist within its limitations.
We will focus mostly on the branding concept. Anyone who wants an explanation on the business side of things can feel free to contact us personally.
The branding concept
The biggest disadvantage for Padre e Madre is also their biggest advantage: the face that they were not culinary entrepreneurs with healthy financial backing, but just a couple in their golden years cooking with their whole heart. In a city full of independent young adults longing for that connection to parents and their roots, we couldn’t ask for a more perfect combination.
So, we built a brand centered on two parents and the contrast in their characters, expressed in messages like, “eat as much as you want sweetie,” from the mother and, “don’t even think about leaving anything on your plate,” from the father. This is all meant to make you think about your own parents and connect the food to them so that every time you order a meal, you’re getting a lot more than lunch.
This persona is backed up by values like empathy, quality, light humor, directness and parental pride, and it’s expressed in every part of the company’s behavior, from its language, to the unique way it operates (you eat what their is, not what you order) and its appearance: a lunch box prepared by your mother alongside bags and digital designs that send you into nostalgia.
A word on the connection with the business
Since we weren’t dealing with a standard business, we used the abundance of constraints associated with this unique venture to tie its (apparent) operational disadvantages to its branding – that is, to combine the unique conduct of this business with its branding concept. Here are to examples of how this manifested itself:
- The first challenge was the fact that the cooking was done once every two or three days and not ongoingly. We connected that to what every child is familiar with: the Tupperware of food given to them by their parents every weekend. From there we decided that the concept would be to order a package of food for the entire week or part of it instead of one meal when you’re hungry.
- The second challenge was the fact that a broad menu that included a variety of different dishes wasn’t a realistic option. The solution was that customers wouldn’t order a specific dish. In order to connect this issue with the character of the brand, we used the question that every parent is well familiar with: what is there to eat?
The bottom line
One of the things we learned in this case and that we learn repeatedly through our work is that no matter what your limitations and challenges are, everything can be made interesting with the right story. That’s true whether yours is a large of small company, old or new. We are all looking for experiences, emotions and memories. The only challenge is knowing how to create them in a way that connects to your business and, of course, to communicate them as precisely as possible in a way that touches your target audience.
Any questions? We are here.