Born Free Pet Food

Creative Agency: Ideas that Kick
Project Type: Produced, Commercial Work
Client: Born Free Pet Food
Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Packaging Contents: Dog Food
Packaging Materials: Plastic

Kick Repositions Challenger Pet Brand for Growth

Minneapolis, Minnesota, September 22, 2016 — 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 all dogs everywhere.

His first step was to reach out to the pet category branding experts at Kick to evolve the branding, packaging and digital presence. From the first concept presentation on, Braise knew Kick was setting up his brand for regional growth — and then national.

“Kick’s new branding and packaging inspired us to rethink how we position and present Born Free,” says Braise. “We can now elevate our brand above our product features, and engage dog moms with our philosophy — this helps us stand-out against the competition in a big way.”

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 of the brand. Born Free’s branding honors the timeless spirit that lives within all of us, while also demonstrating a relentless passion for simplicity and quality.

“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. “We deepened emotional engagement with our evolutionary pet food target audience and built out the branding to have appeal that can play within a national footprint.”

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.”

New packaging and branding rolled out in August to the upper Midwest and is gaining shelf space, new distributors and a broader national footprint. Kick created branding, packaging, website, social, sales tools and advertising.