Coco di Mama is an award-winning Italian-To-Go brand with >190 points of sale all over the UK. From brick-and-mortar stores to over 135 nationwide delivery kitchens across 6 Partners, 30 Sainsbury's Food to Go (and growing), as well as 1 motorway services pasta counter trial, the company is growing fast with new Partners in new channels all over the United Kingdom.
My Role:
· Research
· Concept
· Instore Testing
· Refining Design for Print and Digital
· Adding Calories
Problem I Was Solving:
My role was two-fold. First, to redesign the menuboards used in the brick-and-mortar stores. Some stores have print and others have digital, so the concept and designs had to translate across both mediums. The menuboards needed to be easy to navigate as there would be more options for customers to customise dishes and, as a brand, they were already making a conscious choice to move away from top-down photography. The menuboards were the last remnants of the use of top-down photography and I was fully onboard with the transition away from it. The second part was adding calories to the menuboards to comply with the UK’s calorie labelling mandate in a bid to improve the nation’s health.
My Research and Initial Ideas:
My first step was to do a competitor walkaround to get a sense of how other QSR brands were laying out their product information on menuboards. The main aspects I was looking at were customer journey, whether promotions were highlighted, use of photography and colour, as well as branding strength. I looked at a range of brands such as Leon, Pret, Wasabi, Pure, McDonald’s, Joe and the Juice, as well as Farmer J. My main takeaways were:
· Less is more when it comes to imagery
· Strong photography is everything
· Contrast is essential to stand out
· A balance between menu boards and promotion can work well, if done right
· The customer journey needs to be constantly kept in mind when organising the menu board order
· Subtly showing branding is important
From there, it was a dive into the psychology of how customers order food and taking all that information into account with the new concept. I took in key information such as customers make their choice in 2 mins on average, the rule of 7 (trying to avoid having more than 7 products in a menu category as it can cause decision fatigue) maintaining balance and trying not to overuse imagery.
The previous menuboards utilised top-down shots of all the dishes (classic pasta dishes, soups, hot list items). The only products shot from the side we’re the seasonal pasta dishes. One of the main changes I wanted to make to the menuboards was having hero imagery (one on each board) instead of having imagery for each product. This way, we’d be able to show the depth/generosity of the pasta pots (one of the products most marketable aspects) as well as the new packaging. We’d also have more space for when the calorie information needed to be added onto them. While the past menuboards showcased all the products visually, it was missing the storytelling aspect to make the customer journey clear, especially with the addition of more options to customise dishes. That was a key issue for me to tackle.
With my initial designs, I focused on the classic and hero pasta options as those are Coco di Mama’s USP. I wanted to treat them as they’re the protagonists in a movie. I removed the top-down imagery from each item, only had the side on hero shots and started to form the idea of using one of the menuboards as a place to highlight the steps for ordering a Coco pasta. Ultimately, the idea was on the right track, but need a bit more refinement. Given that the options for hero pasta, hot list items and soups change with every seasonal campaign, we needed to keep using placards that we place on the menuboards. Additionally, having the classic pastas (which tend to remain consistent) and the hero pastas on one board could prove to be confusing for customers.
Design Process and Deliverables:
For the next iteration of designs, I approached it from the digital boards and included all the lunch boards. This was so we could do some instore testing on site, with me working behind the till in our Holborn store to hear customer insights in real time. With these designs, I applied my learnings from the initial designs. I kept the classic and hero pasta on separate screens. I added in a Coco Steps board to breakdown how to order the pasta and moved that to the 1st screen as an introduction to the customer journey. I added singular hero imagery to all screens, bar the Coco steps screen and the coffee menu. I also gave the classic and hero pasta screens their own-coloured backgrounds to highlight them as the core products we sell. With the classic and hero pasta imagery, I started to experiment with toppings in the imagery to visually show customisation options. We also had calories on there as part of the testing.
The instore testing of these designs was the perfect way to get feedback from customers and the team members working there. This heavily informed the next stage of designs. The main takeaways were:
· Due to the amount of customisation (even down to the type of pasta you choose) displaying the calories for each item wasn’t working
- People were surprised about having to add the calories up (thought the sauces included the actual pasta, even with the counting kcals note)
· The order of the Coco steps can be reworked based on how people order
- People pick their pasta first and then they need the rest of the steps
· Without the pictures for every item, people can get confused about items if they’re not familiar with Italian dishes
- Some people seemed to take a lot longer to decide (this could be down to the increase of information on the boards now)
· People seemed more drawn to the pasta boards with their new designs
· Due to the store we chose (they have 4 screens instead of 6) it was hard to see the impact of the soup board as it was in a rotation with other boards.
With all this information in mind, we launched the new menuboards during our Autumn 2021 campaign with the following changes.
· For breakfast, we kept the imagery of all dishes as a lot of them sound similar and the imagery is what made it clearer
· We removed the toppings and the seasonal pasta labels from the hero pasta boards
· We shot new imagery for the soups and hot list boards
· For print stores, the Coco Steps board and the classic pastas would be split on the same board
· For digital stores with less than 6 screens, we’d combine the soup specials and hot list to one board and that board will rotate with the coffee board
In terms of the colours and font now used on the menuboards, Coco di Mamause Alternative Gothic ATF for headers and Brandon Grotesque as their body text and occasionally for headers. For the menuboards I used the Brandon Grotesque family font as I wanted the menuboards to feel approachable, especially with the increase of information on the boards. To keep the contrast strong with the boards and to increase readability, I continued to use the Coco off-white as a background for the Coco Steps, Soup Specials and Hot List board. I also kept it on the breakfast boards. The main purpose of keeping the classic and hero pasta boards pink was for them to standout as they’re the brand’s USP. I initially considered going with the Coco red, but since we use the red in our packaging which now feature heavily on the boards, I wanted to make sure the packaging still stood out along with shots of the food. For the off-white boards, the main titles are in the pink of the pasta boards and the body text in black for readability. For the pink pasta boards, all the copy is in the off-white. While pink has been used before on a few of the menuboards in the past, I wanted to keep it works with the brand’s playful nature and it’s almost a diluted version of the Coco red. For coffee, we kept the board black to differentiate it from the rest.
As mentioned earlier, we had the calorie labelling mandate for which we added calories onto the menuboards in January 2022. Working with the food team and legislative team, we came up with the best way to add the information onto the boards. From a legal standpoint, we needed to have calories for all items, a note on what the calories were based on where there are areas of customisation and a disclaimer about the recommended daily calories intake. For the pasta dishes, we used the rigatoni (our standard pasta choice) and combined that with the sauces, as well as adding a disclaimer to say the calories are based on choosing rigatoni and sauce. We then added a +/- so customers could calculate their dishes if they decided to switch to a gluten free or wholewheat pasta. For toppings, we added a + so people would understand that this is an addition to the meal. For the coffees, the calories are based on whole milk, and we added a disclaimer for that as well. We also added size indicators on the boards for breakfast and lunch.
We’ve also renamed our classic pasta to signature pasta and our hero pasta to seasonal pasta. We’ve removed Sweet Pomodoro and Chicken Pesto from our signature pasta choices, brought Spicy Pollo back as a signature pasta choice, revamped our mushroom sauce and replaced the images on the soup boards. Now, we use imagery of garlic bread to try and increase their sales and we’ve added soup imagery back onto their placards. All in all, having the singular hero imagery on each board has been the right move and customers are now more comfortable with the ordering process, as well as having calories on the boards. Now, we’ve been introducing kiosks into the estate and are working on the next evolution of highlighting key products using the menuboard space.
Client’s Opinions:
Coco di Mama felt that the final designs led customers through the ordering process in a clear and concise way, that manages to make a lot of information visually appealing.
Tools/Programmes I Used:
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Photoshop
