A BRAND LOST IN THE FIRE
For 30 years Oklahoma Joe’s has been bringing championship-caliber barbeque to backyards everywhere. Now they need a full rebrand to communicate their history and commitment to quality. With several restaurant chains bearing the same name as their product, Oklahoma Joe’s needED a strong new online presence to create valuable brand distinction. AND create product differentiation among their competitors by leveraging thAT commitment to quality and authenticity. WITH A NEW PARENT COMPANY IN CHAR-BROIL, NOW WAS THE PERFECT TIME TO TAKE THE BRAND IN TO AN UPDated direction. FIRST, WE explored A MORE MASCULINE DESIGN FRAMEWORK TO APPEAL TO THEIR PRIMARY DEMOGRAPHIC. This bold, textured base allowed for our content and visually intricate headline graphics to pop off the page. Content-wise, the smoker details and purchase locator shared the stage with a new focus on the craft of smoking. If we wanted to seem authentic, we needed to throw away the ready-to-shoot cooking utensils and the images of a backyard family BARBEQUE that the competition focused on and make things a little more messy...
A Picture is worth a thousand...steaks?
A photoshoot was scheduled to capture the atmosphere that was needed to inspire both the seasoned professional and the Starter-Grill graduate to be able to "find their inner Joe". Polo shirts and smiles directed at the camera were replaced with flannel shirt and leather apron combos and atmospheric shots of faces and hands in the middle of prepping or smoking with the fiery glow of coals popping of the black steel that serves as the site's base background texture. Young boys could pass into manhood just looking these images... To add an extra focus on the craft, we did a studio shoot of various elements involved in smoking such as rubs, (Used) utensils, wood chips, etc and layered them around the borders of the page which also helped add an extra sense of depth to the site by breaking the thick borders and content grids we defined to feel more natural.
