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Little Chef Brand Re-think

Author: Christopher Pinches
Posted: May 16th, 2011
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Charlie the chef is back smaller, slimmer and more socially appealing than ever before! Wonderfully British… LC has undergone a brand realignment which is friendly, approachable and versatile in its approach. I love the versatility of the new brand with contrasting typefaces, sizes and an array of colours. In fact it works in a similar [...]

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Charlie the chef is back smaller, slimmer and more socially appealing than ever before!

Wonderfully British… LC has undergone a brand realignment which is friendly, approachable and versatile in its approach. I love the versatility of the new brand with contrasting typefaces, sizes and an array of colours. In fact it works in a similar way to the London 2012 Olympic brand in terms of colour and allows each restaurant to be personalised in a similar way to how (London 2012 themes events and venues by colour). My suggestion for the new strapline was Big Chef little taste, but by choosing “Good to Go” LC uses the same language as their target market whilst placing on emphasis on speed and efficiency.

Flexible Brand

LC should always be associated with good times and has 10million loyal fans, but the old brand had been showing its age for a long time. It had almost got to a stage where the original white of the seats had turned yellow…literally reflected in the decor of the building! Now the decor is playful with a tiled sky on the ceiling and the option of high rise or low rise dining…the option of self service food…what I like is that there is a modicum of flexibility which was never present in the old brand.
Owner of the brand Lawrence Wosskow says :

“We want to make the image softer, warmer and trendier.”

Now you simply have more options and good options at that. LC’s approach to rolling out the new stores is equally flexible. 4 new restaurants will be opened all with slightly different approaches. LC will then react to the feedback they get from these and continue the most popular approach across the rest of their restaurants, almost mimicking the approach of websites like thinkvitamin.com which reacted to users by changing it’s design straight after launch. This wasn’t a sign of weakness but instead a proactive / real world approach.
Scaled to perfection

I particually like the use of large typography in juxtaposition with the tiny little chef icon…this works perfectly, as does the use of red (in this case!) space. An iconic feature of little chef were the orange lollies you were given upon leaving…these have now been reinvented and kept beautifully in line with the current brand. The brand now filters across all mediums right down to the colours of the lollies themselves.

Big Chef takes on Little Chef

Heston Blumenthal really kick started The LC rebrand when he recorded “Big chef takes on Little Chef” and during this programme he began to put his stamp on the brand realignment by bringing in wonderfully British dishes (at reasonable prices) and also his own character (of a cool modern day chef) .

Roadside Consumer Habits

Roadside consumer habits really focused the approach of the realigned brand and the key considerations from this research were:

Speed / efficiency

Food needs to be served quickly and effortlessly to consumers who typically will have undertaken a long journey and will also be hungrier than they would normally be, as the wait for a meal when on the road is again typically longer. Wosskow says: “Most people want to spend 20 not 45 minutes when they stop.”

Reliabilty

In the form of recognised dishes which will satisfy hunger. You don’t want to be taking a risk with food when you are hungrier than normal; this is why the menu sticks to what we know.

Value for money

Roadside consumers will often want a quicker solution but not fast food as this is deemed lower in quality and not a ‘proper’ meal. So the price position of LC seems to be spot on.
The LC realignment has all the ingredients to be a success. The old Charlie chef never really grew up, but I’m looking forward to meeting his new age equivalent!