Establishing a personal brand and media franchise

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The challenge:

Eric Ripert made a name for himself as a charismatic Michelin starred chef at Le Bernardin. He needed help shifting from restaurant star to a media personality and brand franchise that would extend into Hospitality and TV, without losing his refined, intelligent, yet causal manner.

The approach:

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First, we’d need an innovation platform to establish a cohesive Eric Ripert empire in a style definitively him. Starting with a macro-culture study, we identified his audience, brand opportunity, brand architecture, and rollout plans for the brand. Second, we’d need a cultivated, yet casual name to act as experiential “hook”, create just enough distance from Le Bernardin to be independent, and scale.

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Why it worked:

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The culture study revealed a foodie market hungry for authentic cultural experiences and deeper relationships with food.These people wanted to commune over inspiring meal experiences, stories, and pilgrimages to the source.

The new name Avec Eric (with Eric) leveraged a well-known French preposition (avec) with his first name (Eric).This set a refined, yet casual tone from the get-go, while nodding to Ripert’s creds and heritage. Doing things with Eric created the experiential and scalable “hook” we sought (cook Avec Eric, travel Avec Eric…), inviting newcomers on an ongoing food journey relationship.

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This  innovation platform and name continue to work 15 years hence, in exclusive Ritz-Carlton destinations, an Emmy andJames Beard award-winning PBS TV series, a series of four cook books, and now streamable episodes on iTunes.

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Owler Hook:
How do you get to that enduring promise and authentic “hook”? Only an incisive study of the culture and landscape could help us crack the code and land a solid strategy. Our findings helped develop a proprietary rallying cry unique to the Eric and his enterprise. This led to a positioning that reflected Ripert’s warmth, style, integrity and passion for engaging people with unforgettable food experiences. This helped isolate what the name needed to do— work as conversational name that doubles as a personal invitation to singular food journeys.

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