As an honors student, I got the opportunity to do strategic branding consulting for Chops beef Jerky, a food startup, part of the Chobani Food Incubator, 2017.

Chobani, the yogurt company asked us (a team of three) to help them with branding six food startups which are making difference in the food world. The incubator supports these companies with investments, access to food and beverage networks and expertise to scale up business. We kicked off with a workshop and then did a deep dive with two of these startups. This is a short glimpse of our work.  

Our process was to perform a brand audit, define the audience, which led to a new positioning proposal, the development of brand tools, and finally brand activation ideas to to bring the new positioning to life. 

We conducted an in depth brand audit to see how the brand lives in the real world, its competitor, analogous products etc. and arrived at three thought starters.

Can Jerky transcend from a salty snack to real food like bacon?
Can Jerky move from being hidden shame to a badge of pride?
Can Jerky challenge the stereotype from being for a redneck to tender hearted?

Our opinion was to change the narrative of Jerky and Chops be the pioneer of that change. We identified our audience as the challengers who live by the Mantra - What if?

This informed our territory "Everybody's got a hungry heart" and we developed an array of brand tools which will guide the brand throughout its journey.

Guided by our new positioning, we designed a series of brand activations to bring it to life.