Wagamama
Wagamama
from restaurant to home
Context and ambition
With the UK hospitality industry virtually closed down for most of 2020, wagamama wanted to ensure that it kept its place in consumers’ hearts and minds. And so, during lockdown, the brand launched its ‘Wok from Home’ channel to enable fans to recreate its classics under the tutelage of its Global Executive Chef, Steve Mangleshot.
But still, cooking Asian cuisine can be daunting in terms of getting the blend of spices right. In keeping with the brand’s kaizen philosophy (meaning good change) the channel’s positive impact inspired a new range of meal kits, pastes and sauces to make it easier for people to nourish their body and mind.
Insight
wagamama has a cult-like following – devotees to the brand who can’t get enough of its food. With the new retail range taking care of the all-important spice blend, consumers are now free to experiment with their choice of protein and vegetables, to put their own spin on the wagamama magic.
Idea
For its first foray into retail, we needed to build on the brand’s equity with the identity taking centre-stage across the brand’s signature black – signalling the wagamama that consumers know and love.
The key ingredients for the pack were a given – brand first and amazing food – brought to life through photography that heroes the food, and a loose, but delicate illustration style that visually represents the consumer getting creative in the kitchen.
As a finishing touch, our idea was to help differentiate and inspire consumers to ‘add their own touch’ to the brand’s classics. Here, the back of pack came into its own, as we encouraged and made it easy for consumers to recreate the restaurant flavours with clear ‘shop’ and ‘cook’ sections for the ingredients list and cooking instructions, as well as handy tips, tricks and hacks to make the dishes their own.
Impact
wagamama’s instantly recognisable identity takes pride of place to drive brand awareness in a new channel, while the all-important tips and hacks encourage trial. And the brand’s promise of ‘Every Bowl Makes a Difference’ means that wagamama’s profits from the first twelve months of sales will be donated to the YoungMinds charity.
Brandon has been a fantastic partner in bringing the wagamama grocery range to life. With restaurant footfall obviously down on previous years, and consumer attitudes and lifestyles constantly changing, the brand needed a way to remain relevant in consumers’ lives. The new range actively gives shoppers the courage to be a little more adventurous through the familiarity of wagamama’s classics loved by so many – and hopefully many more to come.
Clare Furlonger
Marketing Director, All About Food
