Team members: Claudia Lewis, Michelle Schuppisser, Rania Said Abdalla, & Shelby Packer.
Over the last eight weeks, our group focused on exploring and the intersection of art, food, and culture. When the assignment was initially proposed, our group formed together over our communal interest in the arts and culinary industry. Our process was complex, we all came from different educational and professional backgrounds, and each of us had niche individual interests we wanted to explore. However, after conducting a vast amount of research and interviews, we focused on the concept of brand embodiment.
Each of us was intrigued by the progression and impact that social media “food trends” had on the world during the pandemic. Having all taken classes in business and marketing, we began to view this food trend phenomenon through a business and branding lens. Over the last decade, with the rapid growth and obsession with social media, we have observed various industries and brands using social media as a platform to build their identity and promote sales of their products. Almost every industry had tapped into this market. However, only a few culinary businesses had. This inspired us to research the current ways the food industry was sharing information; and explore how utilizing these social media tactics in the food industry could stimulate products, brands, and knowledge. Because this is an innovative and very current topic, little information was published on the internet to drive our research. This led us to believe conducting interviews with people currently working in the publication and visionary side of the culinary industry would be a key source for extracting and compiling information. We devised a list of influential individuals with food-focused social media pages and arranged interviews with them. These individuals varied on their specific role in the culinary industry and particular interests, but all talked about the importance of what we would later coin “a brand embodiment.”
Our process included interviews with the following known food personalities: Laila Gohar, Aliza Abarbanel, Jon Rubin, Maayan Zilberman, and Lili Sherman.
The main statement from Laila Gohar, who produces conceptual installations out of food for art and fashion clients, is that it is all about selling an experience. As she partners a lot with brands, she sees how this impacts the viewer. She believes that creating a tangible experience is what attracts the end-user the most these days.
Laila Gohar for Simone Rocha at Dover Street Market Los Angeles
By talking to Aliza Abarbanel, an independent food writer, we learned a lot about the perception of food on social media and how this impacts the consumer behavior of people. We learned that people are vulnerable to food trends: a great example we discussed was the famous Feta-Pasta recipe that led to Feta cheese being sold out in the Finnish supermarkets. But also that there is a discrepancy between what people consume online versus how they behave offline. So most people may see tons of videos on how food is prepared on social media, but they may still choose to act differently in real life.
Jon Rubin, the co-founder of Conflict Kitchen, showed us how tough it is to put an idea out and develop it further with society's reaction to it. The main idea of Conflict Kitchen was to raise awareness of countries and cultures with which the U.S. conflicted by selling food specialties from specific countries. However, the media coverage and people’s reaction to it became a much bigger topic. A main take-away is that food can serve as a mechanism and a carrier of education and stories. It definitely helps people initiate conversations, crosses territorial boundaries, explores different identities, cultures, and nationalities. However, mainly it confirmed the assumption that food is still a political topic.
Another quote that fascinated us was: “People don’t have the patience and understanding for food and art (...)” by Maayan Zilbermann, a sculptural designer & confectioner of sweets. She observed the trend that when people want something, they want it immediately and do not have the time to gather a lot of information about their foods.
Lilli Sherman, the founder of OMA, a multi-disciplinary studio melding brand marketing, events, creative programming, communications, and social, with main projects around food, highlighted a fading trend of brands taking on one personality while trying to convince consumers to buy their products. The main learning was that brands need to talk to and convey their message across different target audiences. Further, crucial points for a food brand to succeed are community engagement and a low entry barrier.
This led to the development of our project statement and thesis. Our team went through a few rounds of refinement. Still, we ultimately decided on: In a world with a greater focus on social value, what role do art and culture play in communicating these values and influencing the behavior of a “Fast and Fresh” or “Culinary Cruisers” demographic? We felt that our research could be interpreted through multiple perspectives and examples with this thesis in mind. While we understood it could be interpreted in many different ways, we recognized a few commonalities behind our research which made it easy for us to proceed into an overarching theme.
From the literature review and research, we have found that artists use food to interact with audiences, and food art creates experiential connections. It was mentioned by Kevin West for Surface Magazine in 2017 that “once food had been established as a medium for interactive objects, artists began to understand its potential as a medium for transformative experience.” Our team realized that food brings people together, creates jobs, and becomes fans of specific food or restaurants because of the taste, the looks, and the experience overall. But we wanted to dig deeper and focus on the effect of visuals on user experience with food.
We have found that “using food as an artistic medium opened new doors for the artist, not least because it can become an organic, visceral analog for the body in ways that bronze or marble never could,” according to West.
According to artist Dana Sherwood in an interview for Surface Magazine, “cooking separates us from the animals and constructs our human identity.” She believes that food is viewed as ‘acculturation.’ She believes that food helps people create connections and make friends.
As a group, we wanted to know what makes a brand thrive and what will help it thrive in the next five to ten years. For brands to be successful, they are required to become smarter about expanding their reach through coherent products and services. According to Emmanuel Probst and Victoria Sakal for Media Post, There are already brands that have
become lifestyle brands, centered on the aspirations of their target audience. The most successful become ecosystems. That is, ecosystem brands are an interconnected set of services that enable users to fulfill a wide range of needs in one integrated experience.
The two authors insist that it is important that brands "leverage technology and data to create a coherent consumer experience addressing various needs. Through this process, they become ‘lifestyle’ or ‘ecosystem' brands,’” and this is how we believe that Hannaford should become a lifestyle brand.
Ecosystem brands are created to serve the customers with one-stop shops for all their needs and wants. According to the authors, “These brands derive real benefits from the network of connections and interactions they can create with their customers — provided that data is collected, integrated and leveraged smartly.” Brands like Hannaford can use data “to personalize the customer experience and anticipate the user’s needs, optimize the timeliness and effectiveness of their marketing, upsell companion products, and address user pain points problem areas,” according to Emmanuel Probst and Victoria Sakal. That led us to think about organic ways that food, arts, and visuals approach users, which led to the brand embodiment.
Our team started workshopping ideas of a term that would perfectly sum up what we saw in our research and interviews. We landed on the term "brand embodiment." To us, the phrase brand embodiment takes into account that strong, sustainable brands are not singularly focused on only beautiful branding or a delicious product. Our team argues that people today don’t have the patience to make senseless purchasing decisions unless there is some deeper connection that engages and draws them into the product to the point of purchasing. Through our research, we found that this sort of “connection” can be done in various ways. It can be done through dramatic consumer outreach and attention, such as strategic engagement of community, product and community value, and appeal–even strategic brand identity. If a product or brand has some interpersonal consciousness that identifies with the consumer, there is more likelihood for consumers to purchase and thus “subscribe” to the brand.
While a brand's real work is to figure out how to encapsulate the soul of the product, there need to be simultaneous efforts in how they’re reaching the consumer through their modes of engagement. Today's social media and video content are integral in consumers understanding the ethos of the brand and how the product will engage with consumers. This can also be done through copywriting and brand voice, which should feel interactive and candid with the consumer.
We focused our research on brands and companies that we believe had “a brand embodiment” in mind. We landed on two companies in the food industry, Sakara Life and Erewhon, that exemplified strong brand recognition through strategic solutions. Our first example, Sakara Life, was one of the food industry pioneers that optimized this visually oriented and digitally-obsessed culture. Sakara is an online plant-based organic meal delivery program. We were initially intrigued by the company’s use of bright and beautiful imagery to market its products, which appealed to its social media audience.
Through its visually-oriented approach to marketing and development, the brand has created a lifestyle for its community members. The company has created what they call the “Sakara Circle,” which engages customers and connects them with like-minded people. Sakara continuously partners with fitness studios, clothing companies, beauty companies, and so on, incorporating Sakara in other aspects of people’s lives. Utilizing the brand embodiment methodology has allowed Sakara to rapidly grow its ecosystem and connect with members in ways beyond a meal plan.
In today’s digitally-focused culture, food still is personal, but it also can be shared and communicated with others to develop relationships and a community. Our second example, Erewhon, is a health-food and wellness grocery store based in California, with several locations in Los Angeles. It currently operates and focuses on niche, locally-produced, and organic foods–specifically focused around Keto, Paleo, raw, vegan and kosher diets. Tapping into California's health-conscious and outdoor lifestyle, Erewhon has capitalized on being the ultimate utopia for people who want to eat well–and have people know that they do. We found this to be a strong example of brand embodiment because of the loyalty of their clients and the desire to be an Erewhon shopper. Erewhon has done a great job attracting clients who want to be seen there and want to embody all that the grocery store promotes.
Over the last eight weeks, our research certainly evolved from the beginning of the semester to how our final presentation took shape at the end. While Sakara and Erewhon are different food retail experiences from Hannaford stores, we understand that there are still great lessons that can be learned if we compare the shopping experiences and recognize the gaps in understanding Hannaford’s Fast & Fresh demographic.
Hannaford’s Fast & Fresh audience is looking for affordable, accessible, and holistically valuable food. We believe the intention behind our research of the art and food intersection is to look for something similar– but in conclusion, we recognize that the approach of our arts and culture research is opposite to the current cultural and visual methods performed by Hannaford today.
At its core, the term "brand embodiment" represents the humanistic qualities of food and how food interacts with its consumers, perhaps in a visual way. Still, it addresses other aspects of their lives, their identities.
As designers, the problem statement and the conclusion of our research will continue to be worked on and developed to meet the growing needs of consumers today. While our research made visible some of the obvious gaps in the Fast & Fresh strategy at Hannaford, we see this as a potential intervention area to grow an audience and community through impactful brand strategy. It remains to be work that needs to be done for larger food companies and conglomerates, but it can be seen as vital for sustainable growth in today's digital age.
References:
Probst, Emmanuel, and Victoria Sakal. “The New Era Of Brand Building Is Ecosystem-Driven Growth.” The New Era Of Brand Building Is Ecosystem-Driven Growth, July 30, 2019. https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/338759/the-new-era-of-brand-building-is-ecosystem-driven.html.
West, Kevin. “Will Work With Food.” SURFACE, December 12, 2017. https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/artists-using-food-in-art/.
Comments