Chobani brings an approachable, ethically minded take on the greek yogurt market. How can we turn a popup shop into an unforgettable experience to cement Chobani's unique position in a visitor's mind?
The Chobani Kitchen rethinks the idea of a pop-up shop, inviting visitors to prepare a meal together using Chobani ingredients, creating space for conversation about the company’s ethical and community-minded approach, and leaving a strong impression that opens the door to a further relationship between customer and brand.
Spatial Experiences
Branding / Visual Design
Storyboarding
Physical Prototyping
3D Modeling (Blender)
Part 1 - 2 weeks
Part 2 - 3 weeks
Part 3 - 2 weeks
Part 4 - 1 week
In order to understand how Chobani's values and philosophy as a brand and discover opportunities to make those shine, I created a client-facing presentation to highlight those points. A summary of the main points is below.
In 2018, Chobani transformed its visual language from clean and sterile, to approachable, hand-drawn watercolor illustrations with pastel colors. It's a stark contrast from any other yogurt on the shelf.
Much like Clif and Patagonia, Chobani targets a young adult audience in its marketing. However, they paint a less active yet just as health-conscious picture of consuming their yogurt.
Chobani emphasizes its healthy relationship with the natural and human communities it is a part of, by responsibly sourcing ingredients and opening factories to revive towns that need support the most.
Ultimately, the client research revealed that young adult audiences were the best group to cater this popup to, while Chobani's rebranded visual messaging with watercolor illustrations, pastel colors, and imperfect graphics, along with its strong emphasis on community building, were the strongest elements that could set Chobani apart from its competitors.
Based on the opportunities found through preliminary research, it was time to craft a popup experience to promote Chobani's brand image. As this was a mock-client project, every aspect was important, from the overall experience to location to floorplan and even freebies given out at the end (see Part 3).
I made rapid thumbnails of ideas for the popup experience - both aesthetic concepts as well as ideas for interactions. Although no idea was a standout to me, I did decide that a rustic cottage aesthetic would carry Chobani's image of being imperfect yet approachable the best.
A realization dawned that most of my first interaction ideas felt detached and lacking a sense of community because there was no guidance to bring visitors together.
Watching documentaries about Chobani's founder, an immigrant named Hamdi Ulukaya, and the key role of a strong community of immigrants and refugees in making the brand successful, made me consider that the best way for a visitor to understand this would be to hear it from a Chobani employee in person.
I settled on making the Chobani experience a mini cooking class, as it would be a great way to showcase the versatility of Chobani yogurt as well as sparking a sense of community through a group of visitors making a dish at the same time.
Additionally, a Chobani chef (or voluntary employee) could act as a guide through the experience, acting both as a mentor as well as a personal way of understanding the firsthand impact that working at Chobani has given to them.
After finalizing the concept, it came time to design the visual and physical experience. I communicated my Chobani Kitchen idea through multiple representations.
Unlike current popup shops that largely feel modern, clean, and undisturbed, I felt like the experience-first, profit-second model of the Chobani Kitchen deserved a theme that would also outwardly set it apart from other popup experiences.
I decided on a homely visual language inspired by cottagecore, filled with pastel colors and patina.
These helped to understand the flow and visualize the experience before diving into more time-consuming representations.
A 1/24 scale model of the pop-up shop to convey layout and scale in real life.
Created in order to make superimposed renders to show scale in proposed location.
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In my storyboarded interaction, the Chobani Kitchen experience ended with visitors receiving a branded cookbook featuring recipes incorporating Chobani products. This idea came about from browsing official recipes from guest chefs on their website, as well as watching documentaries following the diverse backgrounds of Chobani’s employees, including their motivations and reasons for choosing to work there.
As cooking and sitting down together for a quick meal was the core Kitchen experience, a parting gift combining Chobani recipes and the humanization of Chobani workers felt appropriate. In line with Chobani branding and the rustic nature of the pop-up experience, this coptic-bound cookbook features a laser engraved, stained wooden cover, and organic illustrations to accompany the stories of how Chobani employees found community in the place they work.
