Can something great be greater?
BRAND SNAPSHOT
Established - 2009
HQ - Bali, Indonesia
Employees - 120
Product - Fast dining casual resturant with best voted BBQ grilled Pork Ribs and potent Cocktails serving 80-100 covers per seating
Challenge - Diluted brand idenity which created conufusion amongst employees, customers and partners. Revenue was on a deliclining trend.
Challenge - Complete Suite of Brand Identity. Outlet Interior. Staff Uniform. Packaging. Merchandize. Website. Social Activation Campaigns.
With Hog Wild, a Bali hotspot famed for delectable pork barbecue ribs and wicked martinis, the question was both an affirmation and a challenge.
Following a corporate shake-up that left the brand in a position of contention, Hog Wild has undergone two major rounds of re-branding in 2014 and 2015. While the efforts were valiant, they weren’t enough to capture the true spirit of the brand. Nor did they adequately fulfil its business ambitions: to expand into an offshore franchising and frozen food retailing. Coming short of its potential, the lack of a distinct identity affected both customer experience and staff morale.
The Agency was then tasked to help define the brand. With great food and drinks as foundation, our job was to bring out the wild in Hog Wild.
Our first visit to Hog Wild revealed a bold and unique personality that became the cornerstone of the new brand campaign.
Beleaguered but not broken.
We kicked-off our assignment with a mystery benchmarking exercise. We visited competitors, tried a lot of ribs, and enjoyed the food tasting quite a bit. But while competitors offered a comparable menu of barbecued goodness, they merely focused on delivering the ordered dishes. Food. Nothing more, nothing less. Here lies the massive advantage for Hog Wild.
Our visit to Hog Wild showed an understated quirkiness, free-spiritedness and vibrancy that is unlike any of our competitors. But this identified gap was not aligned with the existing brand identity, which focused on functional benefits, much like the competition.
Through various deep-dive conversations with the founders and key employees, we also discovered that the meaning of Hog Wild was never fully exemplified. After distilling insights from various sources: market research, TripAdvisor®, customer interviews, staff sharing and founders’ interviews, we knew the opportunity that lies within is undeniable.
What’s in a name?
Hog Wild is a phrase synonymous with excitement, enthusiasm, and letting go. Our strategy focused on leveraging on this innate strength, going beyond the excellence of its food offerings, we were set on defining the brand by its attitude.
We adopted a two-pronged approach to express the unbridled joy that comes with going Hog Wild. We want consumers to See Hog Wild and Feel Hog Wild.
The visual stimuli included the birth of Miss Hog Wild, our icon of sassiness and the brand’s official mascot. She is our modern-day Marilyn Monroe. Like the brand, she is equal parts daring and endearing.
The Hog Wild logotype is an expression of “pig on fire” through hand-drawn typography that took countless attempts and even veered towards using “hot” food as instruments. Extreme? Not so when the objective is to See Hog Wild. Suffice to say that our drawing boards were awash with elongated produce (think chili and eggplant) that have doubled up as writing implements.
Our first Creating Miss Hog Wild was a challenge. Being equal parts fierce and fabulous, it was crucial that we got her look down pat.
To Feel Hog Wild, we created a tone of voice that perfectly complements the visual assets. It is the voice of a confident, daring, and innovative brand with a lot of heart. This tone of voice is best exemplified in the Hog Wild Family Dare, a manifesto that is both an uplifting cheer and a passionate haka, depending on one’s state of passion. This articulation is a challenge for each one to live free and celebrate “being you”. It ends with a reinforcement of the brand’s revamped tagline “Let’s Go Hog Wild!”
To preserve the integrity of the Hog Wild brand, we created a brand identity guide detailing visual and language philosophies.
Miss Hog Wild is a memorable brand icon that can be used in various merchandising efforts.
The Hog Wild tone of voice and look were created to elevate the brand and celebrate its uniqueness.
Hog Wild founder and arbiter of taste, Chef Bruno is passionate about ribs as much as he is about martinis.
HWe created a special corner where guests can literally go Hog Wild and take photos in a Miss Hog Wild outfit, with our Family Dare as background.
Spreading the Hog Wild Fire
With a newly revamped identity, there was instant awareness and recognition for the brand locally. A slew of on-site attractions instantly generated buzz in digital and social media, from the specially engineered stage that lets customers channel their inner Miss Hog Wild and pose fearlessly, the Hog Wild Family Dare that prominently appears at the front of the restaurant, to the bold new logo emblazoned on staff t-shirts. The reinvigorated design of the restaurant likewise naturally found its way into customers’ priceless moments and were shared willingly to the rest of their friends and followers.
The Hog Wild Family Dare became the basis of a bespoke Branded Culture Training for the entire company. The agency was tasked by clients to impress the new brand philosophy to the members of the team so that the same values will be personally and collectively imbibed. This exercise in empowerment built a sustainable attitude and love towards the brand.
The Hog Wild brand now has an identity of its own. What was once missing is now impossible to miss.
Truly, no one else has the boldness and sassiness to say…
Created with love by Coach Bongster & Gang