The Struggles!!

I've been thinking about brand names for two days continuously and it's stressing me out. I'm really having trouble fitting everything into the brand name: saying it's a game, saying who it's for, saying it's safe for kids and is it yum

This last one gets me because in class we had a few clever names that were do to with risk and chance but the tutors kept saying, yeah but is it yum, does that sound yum. Quite honestly a lot of brands don't sound yum. Tim Tam...what does that mean, why would I want to eat Tim. 

It's just really hard to fit it all in and try and do a brand that sounds yum, like why is mudhouse wine a thing, that doesn't sound delicious, but the flavours do. So what's the key here. 

Also confused whether the sub brand is supposed to describe the product like farmbake, right baked on a farm, urban bakery makes sense, but if something was madhouse and then associations with it, it would become a brand because of whats under the iceberg. So why does the brand name have to say all these things. 

I am still exploring options, but can't come up with the packaging till I have the name so it's all very frustrating! I'm going to try and focus on it's point of difference being that it's fun and social and it brings your family and friends together and that's why you buy it. 

Also we were going to go with box packaging but I really feel like that is too far away from farmbake if we are trying to take their audience. It needs to be in a bag still I think

Class

Today we re-pitched our idea to the class. We had a few samples of what our packets and our logos could resemble.

We had a lot of great feedback from our peers which was really helpful and we will be taking a lot of it onboard. Some of the key things they suggested were that we make it like a game and really play on that idea, so the packaging is like a board game box and the biscuits are laid out like game pieces in a plastic tray and there is a wheel to spin or something, or make the box useable in the game. Another thing they suggested was to make it really colourful and maybe have characters so that it has that fun aspect and can appeal to kids.

We went through as a group and tried to come up with names, we already had the risk-it biscuit which held up the concept well. However it was pointed out that the name didn't make it sound yummy at all, which is apparently what we need. So we brainstormed and have a lot of ideas but we need to really go through the whole spectrum of what it could be and decided on a name that states what the product is, how to use it, who's using it and that it's yum.

We will be working on a lot of the things said today and carry on making and creating! But at least we are refining what direction we are going

Preparing for Class

Today we went through our brand packaging and had a go at just creating a few ideas in Indesign and photoshop.

We also had a play around with the reverse brief and managed to complete the 4 p's, the competitors, the history, the positioning map and other useful information for our brand. We documented this in the workbook and discussed different questions for tomorrow such as:

-should we have a base biscuit with different roulette flavours or different flavoured biscuits with different roulette flavours?
-we also wondered if we needed to have it in a bag or could the packaging be a box instead.

We are looking forward to some feedback tomorrow and seeing what others have done because we weren't sure how to trial our packaging ideas.

Here's some inspiration, we want quite a colourful, fun look because it has to appeal to kids as well as adults. However we also really like the idea of seeing the ingredients on the packet

 This was a quick logo mockup of something we could do with every flavour so it wasn't just a picture of an ingredient but something that became a form or shape. We will maybe use this as a base and work a logo from this.

A pattern I drew up of chillis to create an illustrative style for the packaging. I prefer this kind of style as opposed to photos because it seems more free and flexible

Working Backwards

In class last week we realised we had missed a whole load of research that is probably very valuable, so we have split up that research to make it easier and then we are coming together for a meeting tomorrow to discuss how this research and insight into the brand will affect our packaging.

I am doing the 4 p's, positioning map, aspect to draw off and history
Hayley is doing the swot analysis, the competitors and existing target audience.

Class

Today in class we got into groups and showed our mood boards and received feedback.

I created the mood boards and Hayley baked chocolate chip cookies with 2 that were salt flavoured so we could let people play russian roulette.

We asked our group which one they thought was working the best after we pitched all 3 ideas to them, they said it was a tie between the international biscuit and the roulette biscuit.
When people tried the cookies someone got a salt biscuit and it was interesting to see bonding take place in this group through the experience, someone else wanted to try to salty cookie out of curiosity and so did I.
Food always brings people together and this really proved it for us, which is when we realised that we wanted to do the roulette biscuit because it seemed so playful and it seemed like it had a lot of potential.

We then went away and re-thought our pitch, which included the sentence:

People are more experimental with their food and want a unique experience. Our biscuit range will give an experience that creates social fund and laughter that brings people together.

We'd like to work on that statement but it's definitely a good start.

Our group voted our idea the strongest so it was presented back to the class. I felt really proud about this but also nervous as always because ideas are always judged and there's always that chance of them being shut down. However some great feedback form the tutors and class made us think about our flavours, how many biscuits would be bad and good, who our target audience is, maybe not naming it russian roulette if it's aimed for kids as well.

The flavours and target audience are linked, because chilli flavour for example is not a kids flavour but if you put it with a biscuit and dark chocolate, it suddenly seems  almost a unique possibly delicious flavour that adults could enjoy.

We now need to go away and do some more swot type analysis on our brand because we didn't do enough in the first week to inform our packaging. After this analysis we will begin to brainstorm and create many iterations of the packaging for next weeks class.

Mood Boards

Today we met to go over what flavours and macro trend ideas we had come up with seperately. I came up with three which were: a gym junkie cookie, a russian roulette biscuit and indulgent biscuit. Hayley looked at a biscuit that would reflect climate change and the ingredients affected by it, and also international cookies from around the world.

We decided that for class we would create three separate mood boards :
The International Biscuit
The Indulgent Biscuit
The Roulette Biscuit

We thought these were the strongest ideas that had the most potential. We didn't want one mood board because the ideas were quite separate already

Holiday Homework Meeting

So today we researched Macro trends that happened in the last 10 years, now and possible trends for the future. Some of the bigger trends were Climate Change, the Global financial crisis (of 08) and people leaning towards craft over mass produced items.