Fresh Herbs
The Context
After collaborating with marketing teams we identified that customers were unaware that fresh herbs were used in the companies' restaurants while frozen was used at our competitors restaurants. This was a consistent issue that brand employees had yet to effectively leverage as a selling point to consumers.
Project Details
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Duration three months
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Project team of:
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HR (1)
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R&D (1)
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Asset Mgmt (1)
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Target audience
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Age 20-55
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Any level of education, literate
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The Problem
The brand needed a way to amplify the immersive experience around dining while educating consumers on the usage of fresh herbs in menu items. Through feedback customers inquired about a more engaging experience regarding dining especially within a younger target audience.
Research
Based on collaborative insights from employees and participant observation we deduced that guests enjoyed stories around the dishes they chose. Guests felt more connected, educated and culturally inspired when they knew the origins and intentions of the ingredients of their meal.
Ideation
Create a small card to educate the guest and provide a more theatrical experience at the table. The thought was to cross pollinate a theater playbill with a dinner menu to create a more immersive experience with "behind-the-scenes" information including origin, flavor profile, and usages for herbs.
Fresh Herbs Plan
Prototype
Add a folding card with entree presentation. On this card would be information about the origin, usages, and flavor profile of the herb for each dish. During dining, participants would read the card and anonymously provide feedback via a mobile app survey.
Caution video contains sound
First iteration
Insights:
-Font size was challenging for some guests
-Busy backgrounds made reading experience difficult
-It was too quiet
What changed in the 2nd iteration?
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Larger card size and font to improve readability
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Improved background card graphics for aesthetics
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Added lo-fi beats playlist background music
Caution video contains sound
Second Iteration
Insights:
-Guests wanted more details on the source
-Encountered confusion on card material
What changed in the 3rd iteration?
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Added contact details for herb source
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Adjusted layout of information for easier faster reading
Caution video contains sound
Third iteration
Insights:
-Guests were interested in what is next for the experiment
-Talking about each herb enhanced the attention to the flavor
What were the conclusions and impact?
The findings of the Fresh Herbs Project solidified to the operations and training teams the need to provide a warmer table side experience to the guests. The personalized herb stories became a way to creatively differentiate the brand from its competitors. The training teams began to implement more origin specific commentary in their training materials for servers making for a more enjoyable and memorable experience for guests.
Hear it directly from a participant!
What did I do?
My role in the project was to guide the team through each portion of the design journey, including educating them, identifying usable insights and crafting a prototype. On the project team duties I was also responsible for:
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Prototype event facilitation
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Communication of the day, time, and menu of each iteration
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Feedback curation from the guests
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Documentation of any new insights
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Recording the event and editing video of the prototypes in action
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Scheduling of all core team meetings and prototype execution days
What challenges did I face and how did I overcome them?
The largest challenges to the project were:
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Project awareness: Participants had never seen this type of prototype and therefore thought it was a food giveaway by the test kitchen
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Irrelevant feedback: Despite direct instruction many participants gave feedback on the taste of the food. Initially this did not provide us with the information necessary to iterate from.
I solved both of these challenges between iterations by specifically talking to both points at the beginning, middle, and end of each prototype session. The increased awareness made it easier for participants to focus and provide quality feedback on the experience and cards.
What would I do differently?
In this project I would have liked to spend more time defining what an immersive experience looks like from the guest perspective. Understanding that "wow!" threshold could have opened more possibilities to delight. That could have meant a special table-side presentation, fancier information cards etc. In hindsight I would have insisted on 1-3 herbs instead of the 4-6 we used. Limiting the options would have provided more time for additional participants and more in-depth findings.