Robot Food prepares Mr Kipling for international launch

Mr Kipling is a UK brand for ready-made cakes, owned by food manufacturer Premier Foods. Leeds-based agency Robot Food recently completed a redesign to give the brand a "confident expression" for international markets.

Mr Kipling has been subject to fairly frequent redesigns in the last few years. I put together a retrospective on the Mr Kipling brand back in 2012. Since then, the brand has been redesigned three times, with the last version by Coley Porter Bell launching as recently as February 2018.

Robot Food's work appears mainly targeting launches in the US and Australia, where Mr Kipling has an opportunity to be fresh challenger brand. The packages are clean and colourful with the product and ingredients at the centre.

Previous logo from 2018, by Coley Porter Bell.

Another previous logo from 2015, by BrandOpus.

From a press release:

"With no strong existing equity in the international market, the team could reinvent Mr Kipling as a true challenger, infiltrating a tired and old-fashioned category with a design that felt exciting and premium.

Martin Widdowfield, Creative Director at Robot Food, said, “we found most popular US products were actually pre-packed with super long shelf lives, but Australian consumers almost always preferred ‘just baked’. ‘Fresh quality’ was our common ground to work from and key to communicate.”

“Cake is the hero and, wherever possible, product shots are accompanied by prominent ingredients. We drew inspiration from European patisseries and chose bright pastels for a fresh, contemporary aesthetic over stronger bold colours that risked feeling artificial.”

To complement an ever-changing colour pallet, the classic Mr Kipling wordmark stands strongly front and centre on pack while straight-talking language brings a younger confidence to the brand. That’s right, the team chose to replace the famous strapline with a compelling reason to believe for a brand-new audience. ‘Make every day delicious’.

Initially intended as two separate executions, Robot Food chose to develop a more holistic expression with variations considered for each respective market. On the finished result, Tonge said “We love it, the design is still the brand without relying on nostalgia. It’s fresh and iconic.”"