Bubbacue

Bubbacue is a fast-casual American BBQ joint, serving slow-cooked smoked pork, chicken, ribs and spicy sausage. It embraces the art of slowly smoking meats for over 12 hours to produce tender and succulent meat. All ingredients are carefully selected, and made from scratch.

Project Overview

  • Client: Bubbacue
  • Photography: WhiteCloud
  • Sector: Food & Drink
  • Category: Brand Development
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The Challenge

Love Me Tender

Bubbacue contacted us to refresh and recapture the personality that once made them stand out. With the opening of a second restaurant, this was a perfect time and opportunity to quickly re-align and re-position their brand. From the insights gained, we set about instilling a personality and attitude into the brand and recreated a rustic décor in keeping with the food served.

The Solution

Right Ingredients

We first immersed the client in a Customer Experience (CX) workshop and service design audit with customers, stakeholders, and staff to quickly understand issues, determine how to reconnect with old customers and engage prospects. The general consensus was clear; customers wanted a ‘good ol’ messy BBQ joint with a rough n’ ready feel, but the new brand was portraying the opposite.

Fast Service

By re-introducing the well-recognized pig icon, roughing up the logo and adding the strapline – ‘Smoked Slow, Served Fast’ – we transformed this brand quickly and effectively. Typographic quotes, infographic menu boards and way-finding signage were hand-drawn directly onto walls to create a personal touch. We developed a bespoke typeface called ‘Bubba’ for all internal and promotional material, and a photoshoot was commissioned to create an image library of grungy shots. The colour palette was toned down, and contrasting blacks/grey swatches were introduced. We followed up with an online T-shirt competition and various print/digital campaigns to encourage customer interaction and build brand awareness.

The Result

Customer Satisfaction

While the existing tone of voice and direction was strong, we felt that the execution of brand visuals didn’t communicate the desired look or feel. Restaurant lighting, neon signage, and table layout were replaced along with several simple changes like switching staff uniforms from white to black, added to recapturing the overall rustic American smokehouse ambience.