Our spots had two main characters: Music and Food. Music was a major ingredient, not something hiding as garnish in the background. It signaled to a younger audience with taste that we share values, that we get it. Our second character, the food, was meant to be eaten in realistic settings, outdoors and when possible with friends. The bright colorful food was always to have a bit of movement to it either created through actual camera movement or through a visible edit.
El Pollo Loco’s previous photo style was came off tired, dated and sorely lacking flavor. With much of their food shot on white it blended in with many of their fast food competitors. We used the flavor of the food to inspire the new photography style. The photo style incorporated delicious sumptuous colors, real-life details, outdoor settings and nods to Mexican Heritage.
El Pollo Loco’s new brand platform—Sabor—focuses on the flavor of food and the flavor of life. As part of it we redesigned the menu and point of purchase marketing to be both lively and fresh, while also being scannable and discoverable. Taking an experience design approach, we looked to create more scan-ability by introducing more readable type treatments with the introduction of Bourton Base and Mabry and reorganized and regrouped menu items into new categories.
Flanked at both ends of the instore menu board were the Limited time offerings (LTO's.) LTO's received their own brand word mark that we juxtaposed against against El Pollo Loco’s stark red. When menu boards were digital, LTO’s were animated to help them catch the customers eye. As a customer walked in the store, they would also be hit with recut footage from television spots to showcase the the latest offering. One particular LTO, Birria, had special packaging designed. On one side of the packaging was the bold callout of the product and on the other was a remixed version of their previous brand fonts calling out to “dip and drip.”
We redesigned the limited edition packaging to be bold and vibrant and work as a high impact billboard for El Pollo Loco and their Beef Birria LTO. The design contrasted a decorative type system meant to embody musicality of the campaign with the muscular highly readable type on the opposite side.
