Minneapolis branding and design agency, Ideas that Kick, recently partnered with Born Free® dog food showing them how surrounding a brand in design can elevate a business’ outlook. Born Free founder, Phil Braise, was faced with a challenge for his regional, ancestral-diet, niche dog food: When you have a good thing, do you let it ride? Or grow it into a great thing and build a legacy for the future?
Braise decided to build a legacy for his family, and for dogs. To help, he turned to Kick to evolve the branding, packaging and digital presence. The new Born Free branding evokes an emotional story and embodies the philosophy that we are all born free. Wild landscapes where a dog can roam under the open sky, without boundaries, are told within the visual palette. New packaging and branding rolled out in late Summer to the upper Midwest and is seeking shelf space, new distributors and a broader national footprint. Kick created branding, packaging, website, social, sales tools and advertising.
“Kick was brought in for a package refresh of Born Free, but we showed how design could surround a brand and transform the business outlook for a smaller, challenger brand,” says Kick strategy co-founder Mary Kemp. Stefan Hartung, Kick’s creative lead, adds “With Born Free it was important to differentiate. Everybody else is out there touting protein content and turning family pets into wolves in the evolutionary diet category. Owners may not want their dogs to become predators. But they likely will agree with our philosophy — Born Free dogs run more, play more and are born to be free.”
