Kicking Up The Flavor

Creative Direction & Strategy:
Advokate Communications

Studio:
Studio Q

Photography:
Quincy Street Kitchen

Food Styling:
Sara Bartus

Food Prep:
Safer Plate

Opportunity

Safer Plate had launched in a critical industry white space – providing direct to consumer meal kits, free of the top allergens. Looking over their existing collateral and asset library, we identified an opportunity to elevate their content strategy and creative direction, and prepare the brand for growth into its next stage.

Solution

After pinpointing the challenge areas created by the existing assets and strategy, we were able to chart a course toward more effective, engaging content.

We evolved the overall vibe – Safer Plate’s early photography looked very chef-oriented, with white dishes on white backgrounds and meals plated like you might see them in a restaurant. We leaned into a perfectly imperfect approach that played up appetite appeal, styling dishes in a more relatable way with drips of sauce and remnant crumbs. We also added depth by introducing new colors and textures of background, linens, and dishes, effectively taking the meal kits out of a restaurant and placing them in the customer’s home.

We led with versatility – As we leveraged existing assets across digital and print collateral, we discovered that many were limited in their ease of application, whether due to composition or crop. We emphasized utility as we built and captured shots, thinking through where and how these assets would show up in the “real world” and what we needed to do during the production process to make their implementation easy and fun.

We added some humanity – Often adding a human element to food photography means someone is holding a fork. And while that’s a good start, we worked to really bring the customer into the food experience with grounding and relatable elements. We styled plates for kids, often with a smear of ketchup that would have parents nodding in solidarity, and weren’t shy about taking a big, messy scoop out of a casserole – always while maintaining the integrity and appeal of the dish.

We got a little weird – One of the beautiful things about building a creative dream team is the opportunity for experimentation. After capturing the shots we needed, we always pushed the content one or two steps further. Not every attempt worked – we ended up with clumsily sliced steak and incredibly awkward hands here and there. But we also saw great success, capturing gifs, stop motions, short videos, and more that imbued brand personality and appetite appeal into the assets far beyond what our shot list called for.

Result

The updated creative strategy and assets supported Safer Plate through expanded DTC delivery from one to fifteen states and a line extension into microwaveable Heat & Eat meals. The brand has secured local retail placement for their CPG products, is actively pursuing broader regional distribution, and is working toward mass market readiness.