Fresh From The Field: Grandpa’s Bacon — By Onfire Design

1 week ago by

Grandpa is an everyday affable Kiwi bloke – simple, honest and lighthearted. This week Onfire Design walk us through how they refreshed a previously no-name brand into one that now challenges the category leaders.

Fresh from the Field is a weekly article series sharing fresh and inspiring work from the Design Assembly community. Want to submit your work to Fresh From The Field? Fill out the form here.


The brief


How do you take a previously no-name brand purchased on price, not brand, and refresh it to challenge the category leaders? Targeted at fun-loving Kiwi families, Grandpa’s needed to reintroduce itself to consumers as the go-to mainstream bacon brand, that delivers crowd-pleasing real food, great taste and an essential ingredient in meals and recipes. Steered by the new insight of ‘Love Every Bite’, Grandpa’s must be full of personality and warmth.

Image of the different Grandpa's Bacon products with their new packaging design.
Comparison image of the old design vs new design
Image of Grandpa's Bacon products on a kitchen bench

The Design Response


To deliver this, we looked to retain the brand’s core brand assets, yellow and the angled packaging sticker, and breathe life and meaning into Grandpa. A loose sketch style was used to create our new Grandpa character – simple, honest and lighthearted; Grandpa is an everyday affable Kiwi bloke. He loves family time, BBQs, and being a good Kiwi citizen, and, of course, has a passion for great-tasting bacon in all of its different styles. On each pack, he interacts with bacon photography – there are hugs, long loving looks and pride with each variation. The wordmark is reworked and made larger – softly rounded typography exudes a warm retro feel; love is brought to life, replacing the apostrophe with a vibrant red love heart. Variant typography is hand-written, a personal message from Grandpa himself.

Off-pack and digital copywriting focuses on taste delivery. Heavy on mouthwatering, bacon-heavy adjectives and less detail, this style delivers on the sheer passion for the product and its consistent delivery for New Zealander’s. While a series of simple animations bringing Grandpa to life around typical eating occasions, celebrations and events.

The result is a proud brand and bright yellow colour blocks in retail. Since launch, the Grandpa’s team have increased store distributions and the number of products in each, culminating in its most significant product launch into Costco which has provided the opportunity into new NPD lines. Grandpa’s is now the genuine and honest family brand, and top Kiwi bloke, in stores.

Image of a man in a plaid shirt holding up Grandpa's Bacon Streaky bacon product.
Illustration of Grrandpa holding different images of their meat products
 gif of Grandpa's Bacon showing mobile application
Poster promo of Grandpa's Bacon
Image of a truck with Grandpa's Bacon branding

The Design Team

Matt Grantham
Natasha Alimova
Alice Ferner

https://www.weareonfire.co.nz/
Facebook: Onfire Design
Instagram: @onfiredesign

Fresh from the Field is a weekly article series sharing fresh and inspiring work from the Design Assembly community. Want to submit your work to Fresh From The Field? Fill out the form here.



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