Uncle Ben s Ready-To-Roll

Transcription

1 Uncle Ben s Ready-To-Roll Digital technologies / Working with brands Project Report Martin Charlier Product Design M.Charlier@rave.ac.uk Digital technologies / Working with brands - Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication 1

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3 Introduction This six week project was done in teams of two. The overall unit was about the topics of working with brands and digital technologies. During the project we picked and analysed a brand, proposed strategic changes and created and worked through a design briefing. This report guides you through the project. The contents are: RESEARCH Why Uncle Ben s? Brand analysis User groups Challenges and Opportunities Project Briefing DESIGN Strategic brand changes Sushi making research Concept generation TESTING Three concept directions The final concept User Feedback Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 3

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5 Research Page 5

6 Fig. 1: Brand moodboard.

7 Why Uncle Ben s? Looking for a brand that is: well known, unique identity, innovative, traditional but contemporary, global, brand name has become a synonym for products Lastly, a brand that we could personally relate to Uncle Ben s is all that, they have a history and are integral part of the vocabulary of some generations of people. Yet they are innovative and managed to adapt to changing lifestyles in the past. Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 7

8 Brand analysis In order to analyse and get to know the brand in more depth, we used two tools. Firstly, we created a moodboard that captures the brand identity and the values in the way the company presents itself in right now. In addition we used the a brand prism model introduced in the book Strategic Brand Management by Jean-Noel Kapferer (Kogan, pg. 1997) to break down the brand into a number of sections and analyse the values of the brand. On the left page you can see the moodboard (Fig. 1). On the following two pages you will see the analysis done with the branding prism model we used. Fig. 2: Identity and Pyramid models (Strategic Brand Management Jean-Noel Kapferer Kogan Page 1997) Page 8

9 Branding prism breakdown PHYSIQUE Logotype, Figurehead Uncle Ben, Orange colour. RELATIONSHIP The relationship is about friendliness, authenticity, quality and quickness. REFLECTION PERSONALITY The Uncle Ben figurehead is shown as an older, African- American. His picture presents him as being wise, friendly, professional, open-hearted. The Uncle Ben s figurehead has been increasingly withdrawn. This happened most likely due to media scrutiny and interest about the persona s history and its relation to slavery. Through the use of this figurehead the brand is perceived as accessible across ages, classes and cultures. CULTURE The brand was first used by a company called Converted Rice Inc. which was later bought by Mars. It is based in Houston, Texas. Uncle Ben s rice was first marketed in (Forbes Magazine, Dec 1999) The customer of Uncle Ben s aspires to a healthy lifestyle and wants to be perceived as a person that pays a little extra for quality and brand as well as a person that is more aware of their eating habits. SELF-PROJECTION Customers feel like they have made a quality choice and trust in the taste of the product. Also they avoid the guilt of making a bad unhealthy purchase. BRAND LONGEVITY Uncle Ben s has a tradition of adapting to changing lifestyles. The companies origin lies in introducing par-boiled rice to the public, making rice cooking simpler and quicker. The last biggest step was the introduction of the Express Rice range, catering for an even faster lifestyle. The coherent element though, has always been about quality and good taste. Although not denying its origins, the brand s past is hazy and over-shadowed by the brand s personality. Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 9

10 Personas To further analyse and get to know the brand, three personas were created: One positive persona who could be a current Uncle Ben s customer and two negative personas who are currently not a typical Uncle Ben s customer. This analysis helps to identify possible directions in growing the customer base and it helps to identify challenges and opportunities in the product offering. Positive Persona years, male. Has a busy job and does his shopping in bits during the week. Likes his bag of crisps after lunch. Negative Persona years, male. Has a busy job and does his shopping in bits during the week. Prefers a soup with his lunch. Negative Persona years, female. Mother of 2 children, sometimes her life gets a bit hectic. Likes to invite friends over for dinner and prepare a fancy meal. Page 10

11 Where is Uncle Ben s right now? Non-Ready Fast Food Slow Food Ready-Meal Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 11

12 Challenges and opportunities The brand analysis and the identification of challenges and opportunities for the brand will be the foundation of the project briefing. Through brainstorming we decided that a big opportunity for Uncle Ben s is in the sector of more healthy, Japanese-inspired rice dishes that are gaining popularity in the European markets. Uncle Ben s needs to adapt to this trend and expand their offering. For our project we set ourselves the scenario, that Uncle Ben s have made this decision and are now asking for support in entering this market right. Key briefing points: A range of Sticky Rice products. Product concepts and promotional items. Key goals: Celebrate the product launch. Lift up the brand perception. Attract a broader customer group. Page 12 Initial theme ideas surrounded by global and general topics that we wanted to keep in the back of our minds.

13 The project briefing Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 13

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15 Design Page 15

16 Uncle Ben s sticky rice brand expansion Fig. 3: Expanded brand moodboard. Page 16

17 Where should Uncle Ben s go? Non-Ready Fast Food Slow Food Ready-Meal Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 17

18 Elevating the brand The moodboard on the left side (Fig. 3) captures and visualises how the Uncle Ben s brand should evolve in order to attract new customers and elevate the brand perception in line with the new product offering. This means the branding of the new products will be different from the current products. As an example Fig. 4 shows how this could be applied to the packaging of a standard Uncle Ben s product. Current Packaging Exploration 1 Exploration 2 Fig. 4: Explorations of Uncle Ben s packaging. Page 18

19 Making sushi research In order to get to know the field we want to deal with, we started by making sushi ourselves. The next step was concept creation. This was done during several brainstorming and sketching sessions. Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 19

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25 Testing Page 25

26 Three concept directions 1) Moulds 1) Moulds: Playing on the unique characteristic of the new Uncle Ben s product, the stickiness, the moulds are a simple and cheap give-away that lend themselves to many occasions. From small sushi or canapée shapes to bigger shapes for abstract and extravagant plate decoration as well as from fun, entertaining children shapes to decorative and abstract shapes the moulds are a flexible and fun way of promoting the launch of Uncle Ben s new sticky rice range. 2) Strangler: Catering single nuri strip buyers who want to make only single rolls and dinner parties where every guest gets to create their very own maki roll. The sushi strangler is a very reduced product that makes it simpler to create a single sushi roll by strangling the roll together until it holds tight. During the creation we tested numerous ways of making the strangler and eventually stayed with a single component design. 3) Ready-To-Roll: The ultimate product for lunchtime sushi makers, simple and easy like existing Uncle Ben s products but fresh and not ready-meal. This product takes away the hassle of preparing sushi rolls all that is needed are the ingredients and the product. Open the pack, fill in the ingredients and roll your own sushi. The backside of the packaging even acts as a rolling mat. The process creates far less mess than making real sushi and is a lot quicker and easier. Canapées/ Sushi Adults Fun, Entertaining, Exiting Decorative, Sculptural, Extravagant Food Sculptures Children Page 26

27 2) Sushi Strangler 3) Ready-To-Roll Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 27

28 Ready-To-Roll... In a roll As we felt the Ready-To-Roll concept was the strongest, we decided to take this concept further and solve the challenges it gave us. In order to achieve a more sustainable packaging design that would have a better ratio between amount of food and volume of packaging we went through another brainstorming and ideation phase. The final concept was created: The idea of the nuri seaweed sheet with the pre-spread rice, ready-to-roll was taken further and turned into one long nuri sheet that is rolled up and delivered in a tube. Page 28

29 Carboard sides. (Food grade board) Cardboard tube. (Food grade board) Bio-Coating on the inside of the tube. Resealable lid. Printed label. Top side, non-stick, grease proof paper. Top and bottom layer perforated together. (Pressed) Nori seaweed with edible coating. (Starch or cellulose based) Bottom non-stick grease proof paper. Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 29

30 Scalability Another feature of the final concept is scalability. As the concept is applicable to professional markets as well, it could also be applied to bigger scale versions of the product. Page 30

31 Placement in a retail store With the range being positioned in a fresher and healthier market sector with the need to be stored chilled, the products will also benefit from a better placement in stores together with fresh products instead of the shelves with preserved products. Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 31

32 Prototype and final mock-up Pull out as much as you like. Cut the sheet at desired length. Store roll in fridge for later use. Take away grease-paper. See above the testing of the final concept as a proof-ofconcept. To the right you can see the final packaging mock-up which also shows the suggested combination with a sushi-rolling mat for the launch period of this new product. Further right you can see the printing of the packaging. Page 32

33 User feedback In order to get some qualitative feedback the final concept was presented to a range of people and their opinion was asked. A lot of people don t make their own sushi because they don t want to cook the rice and do all the preparation work. I would buy it... Because I m lazy. This would encourage people to make their own sushi. It s a nightmare doing all the preperation. That would save you a lot of time. I would buy it for lunch! I like the packaging, it s really unique and original. It s quick an easy, not so messy. I can imagine buying it for a party, where I buy a few of them and then buy ingredients. Digital technologies / Working with brands, Project Report Martin Charlier - Ravensbourne College of Design and Communication Page 33

34 thank you.

35 Digital technologies / Working with brands Martin Charlier (and Joe Smith) Product Design, Level 2 M.Charlier@rave.ac.uk