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The Mean Tomato
Context
The take-out pizza category is an extremely crowded one. Pretty much everything that can be said about pizza has been said, and it’s becoming increasingly hard for brands to break through the cheesy noise…
Enter The Mean Tomato – created exclusively for delivery service Gopuff.
In order to stand out, we knew we needed to create a pizza brand that acted a little differently. So, although this brand leans into a lot of the classic NY pizzeria tropes, the brand mascot certainly does not. Rather than bringing another “Gr-r-reat” overly enthusiastic mascot into the world, we took a more unexpected approach and created one who could work a bit harder for the brand, or not, depending on how you look at it.
Client
Gopuff
Agency
Alec Tear ✕ Kuba & Friends
Put simply, this mascot is less of a sidekick and more of a sided*ck. He’s a native New Yorker – lovably mean – who exists for two reasons: to eat pizza, and to ruin as many brand touchpoints as is physically possible for a cartoon tomato. Essentially, he’s a catalyst for humour and storytelling – allowing the brand to have a dialogue with itself, or with the consumer – calling out BS where he sees it, and delivering something that everyone is craving these days: realness. Whichever way you look at it, he’s one hell of a tool.
Typography has a particularly important role to play in this identity. With two very different voices fighting for attention, we needed two typefaces that could embody their personalities: with enough visual contrast to pull them apart and let them interact with one another.
Deep Pan Sans – a deliciously chunky custom typeface (designed in collaboration with the brilliant Polytype). Its purpose is to embody the ‘brands’ tone of voice: lovably cheerful, stuffed with positivity, and blissfully unaware that it’s about to be unapologetically brandalised.
Sandwich Marker Pro (by Mathias Zimmermann) – the typographic embodiment of the tomato himself: quick, careless and full of swagger. So much so that it’s used to represent his own handwriting. With a vast array of ligatures and alternate letterforms, it always feels organic and never premeditated.
We commissioned the best in the cartoon business, Dan Woodger (represented by Jelly), to create a mascot with a very specific personality. Of course he needed to be mean – but he also needed to be cheeky, witty, absolutely full of himself, but most importantly, still lovable. There is a lot of visual nuance in this mix of personality traits, and Dan expertly captured them in his delightfully squishy style. We then worked together to produce a suite of poses and animations that could be used flexibly throughout the brand.
Another important component of this new brand is its suite of lifestyle and product photography (captured by the masterful Davide Luciano and team). With the pizza boxes acting as a strong branding device in the images, the models freely live and breathe the brand in colourful settings, as they are either terrorised by the mascot, or by absorbing some of his mean attitude themselves.
Serving up this brand was a labour of love for so many people – collaboration at its finest. I lead the project creatively with Kuba Wieczorek (Founder of Kuba & Friends) who managed it. Together we worked closely with the team at Gopuff and enlisted the help from a talented team of independent collaborators to bring The Mean Tomato to life.
Credits
Alec Tear – Creative Director
Kuba Wieczorek – Director
Jessica Lauria – Gopuff Head of Brand Marketing
Nikki Ford – Creative Producer
Alex Hamilton – Brand Strategy
Suzanne Hails – Naming
Anthony Falvo – Copywriting
Dan Woodger – Illustration
Davide Luciano & team – Photography
Polytype – Type Design