Defining adventure for a snack brand and its creative teams

The question

A snack company’s brand had long been linked with adventure, and its sub-brands reached into more everyday moments.

The company wanted to understand adventure broadly, from small everyday adventures to rare big ones, and to see where the main brand and each sub-brand fit within it. Its brand and creative teams wanted guidelines for more emotional communication, grounded in what adventure means to the people the brand serves and the part food plays out there.

Our approach

We heard from both ends of adventure: buyers in the category, and people for whom adventure is a way of life.

Category buyers built maps of their own world of adventure, online and in groups, and committed adventurers shared theirs on a digital platform, where the client’s team followed along and pulled together its own shareouts.

We then joined some of the adventurers on an adventure of their choosing, carrying cameras on the trail, so the brand’s teams could see adventure from the inside.

What the team came away with

Brand and creative teams had a map of the kinds of adventure, portraits of committed adventurers and film from their adventures.

Draft conclusions went through a working session with the client’s team before the final debrief, so the shape of the story reflected the brand’s own judgment as well as ours.

With adventure set out in people’s own terms and pictures, the teams could brief communication for the main brand and its sub-brands from one shared view of the audience, and show creative partners what adventure looks like through the people who live it.