Chilango wanted to tap into the growing ‘plant-based’ trend by developing a menu of new vegan dishes. My task was to create a campaign and brand to promote the menu, and follow on from the commercial success of Eat Like A Saint. Together with the marketing team, we came up with ‘Powered by Plants’ - a name that conveys all the health benefits of vegan food, while having the playfulness of the Chilango brand.
Chilango’s visual language has always had a vintage feel, so for this campaign I looked to the 60s and 70s for inspiration. The word ‘Plant’ had strong connotations in the time of hippies & psychedelia, so I decided to leverage this, creating a retro vegan food campaign to stand out from the ‘clean’ high-street competitors.
With guidance from the marketing team, I created the Powered by Plants logo and a suite of dish logos. I also art directed the dish photoshoot, working with Photographer Tamin Jones and Stylist Eliza Baird to photograph the sweet potato burrito to look more premium, cut into two.
Powered by Plants also had Chilango's most ambitious window vinyls to date, with two different Lucha Libre designs. Inspired by CEO Eric Partaker’s suggestion, these are targeted at Chilango’s core customers - men between 25 & 40 - persuading them to switch to vegan from their usual chicken burrito.
The identity was rolled out across all 11 Chilango restaurants nationwide and was live for six months between April & October 2018. During that time there was also a change from roasted to baked sweet potatoes, which necessitated a menu change.