merit
SURF & TURF: Highlight the pairing of land and sea in our Firecracker Steak & Shrimp (FCSS) DISH, with premium flavor and preserving the American Chinese Panda Express heritage.
The challenge of this campaign was to make our new Limited Time Offer (LTO) stand out in a category that’s saturated with new news, incessant advertising, and forgettable promotions that get drowned out in a sea of sameness.
To address that, we aimed to telegraph the indulgent quality of our dish: both steak AND shrimp in a single dish. A rare combination of ingredients for the category, and a first for Panda Express. Premium indulgence + value. As one Panda Express customer put it, ‘McCormick and Schmidt quality
at McDonald’s prices’.
Demonstrating FCSS is a real meal prepared in a real wok was a key part of our strategy. We needed to highlight the combination of both proteins AND veggies, to stand out in a category mostly populated
by sandwiches + sides.
Our objective with our work was to cue craving for Panda Express and bring our brand top of mind for our audience: Everyday Indulgers; those who are looking for reasons to indulge every day.
To solve for this, we created a premium visual design system to highlight the indulgence + multi-ingredient nature of FCSS. We portrayed the food as “sculptures”, as objects of desire, supported by indulgent headlines. We created a set of visual elements, -frames-, that supported the merge of American-Chinese culture, building visual equity for Panda Express. This system allowed us to create a fun but premium consistency along all the different platforms the campaign touched.
Panda Express stands alone as the largest family-owned American Chinese restaurant chain in the QSR/LSR category. It was incredibly important to us to pay respect to our cultural heritage when building out our design system. Though we were requested to omit using Chinese characters, we were adamant about incorporating traditional Chinese design elements into our work— mashing it up with the visual boldness of the American fast food category. All while retaining a premium + fresh look for maximum visual clarity.
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