Yahi Café is a new name and brand identity for what was previously known as Streat, a Henderson Foodservice café franchise with 37 outlets across Northern Ireland.

 

Research commissioned by the business clearly reported that the Streat brand was in a difficult place, with so much negative equity, that continuing on or trying to revive the brand was not advisable. The business therefore, took the decision: it is necessary to start afresh define a new positioning strategy and creative brief to bring the brand to life.

 

I was brought in to work with the Henderson/Streat team to get their heads around how to start again, from scratch, with a different mind-set focused on a brand led food offering. 

 

My task, set out over two day long workshops, was to address the following questions:

 

What do we stand for, that is of value to the customer and which differentiates us in the marketplace? 

 

How does our higher level thinking about what we stand for, influence our everyday operations?

 

What is our story?

 

Central to the project was an audit and review of established food and coffee brands in Belfast with additional benchmark input from a recce of London café brands.

 

This review provided a common point of reference to discuss the somewhat intangible concepts such as quality, experience, brand etc. It also put into context these concepts within the Belfast market, with inspiration from the more developed London market.

Co-creation was an essential component in connecting the aspirations of the on-the-ground team with the management function. 
Throughout the project the client team were engaged in storytelling and creative play exercises to maintain focus on the customer, the experience and to build a compelling real-life personality driven platform for the new brand.

OUTCOME
What became clear from the audit was that quality and presentation of food was the common factor connecting the more successful brands in Belfast and that, in that regard, the standard was surprisingly high. Design played an important role in delivering the experience however, quality of food, above all else, was the critical factor in success. Additionally, those who were doing well were segment focused and maintained investment in keeping their segment engaged and the concept fresh.

 

From the workshops two brand platforms were developed which were taken forward to the design stage. Slater Design, who took part in the audit and attended the workshops, developed the YAHI name and brand idenitity.  Why the name? The YAHI were a tribe of Nomadic hunter-gathers, the concept of which fits well with the band idea - to be a place where you can pick up a hearty bite to go, or stop, relax and refuel. 

Yahi was successfully launched in March 2015 and will roll-out through 2016.