Kill’em-n-Grill’em is a start-up barbecue specialties company founded by the Wilson brothers, Lester and Charlie. They grew up on a self-sustaining farm raising and butchering animals for their father. The brothers, continue to raise their own livestock. They began barbecuing for family parties and expanded to catering for friends at biker club events.
Over time, the brothers developed their own recipes for sauces and rubs. Soon they began producing their sauces and rubs in small batches for family, friends and catering.
They hired Bergeron Creative because they wanted to develop a strong brand to market their finely crafted sauces, rubs and seasonings.
Bergeron Creative researched literally hundreds of brands of barbecue products. The competition for barbecue products is fierce. So, we opted for a preemptive brand positioning by going after a niche target: — bikers. We aimed to promote the biker barbecue lifestyle, in the same way Harley-Davidson promotes the biker lifestyle; even non-bikers want to identify with the brand.
We worked from the ground up, developing their name, brandmark and tagline. This brand has “attitude,”, starting with the company’s name Kill’em-n-Grill’em BBQ, a brandmark with a fierce bull skull with flames coming from behind its horns and the tagline “Good to the Bone.”
In addition, we created a signature photograph. The brand image features the Wilson brothers with flames in the background and Lester sporting an actual Kill’em-n-Grill’em BBQ tattoo on his arm.
We created award-winning packaging, including hand-drawn type and pin striping, which creates a retro biker/diner feel. We developed names for sauces, and labels that feature “Goddesses,” whose characters capture the taste of the sauces. Each rub comes in a unique tin to give a hand-crafted feel. The sauces and rubs come packaged in an orange burlap bag with a hangtag featuring the brothers and their company story.
To encourage customers to try all their sauces, we created a specialty 3- pack box set of sauces called the “Goddesses of Summer.” At the brothers’ request we had everything sourced, printed and manufactured in the United States and designed a unique “Made in the United States” badge that is used on all products and promotions.
The website is a place where the whole concept of Kill’em-n-Grill’em BBQ comes alive, including an online store. The lore of the company is built around brothers, Lester and Charlie, who were both born and raised on a self-sustaining farm and have been biking and barbecuing for over two decades.
Within just two weeks of the website’s launching, Kill’em-n-Grill’em BBQ was courted by City Lights Media, producers for the Discovery Home Channel, to make a guest appearance on an episode of The Party Girl. While the guest appearance fell through due to logistics issues, City Lights is working on a “pitch” for a television series based on the relationship of barbecuing biker brothers Lester and Charlie Wilson.
According to Al Bergeron, President of Bergeron Creative, “Our firm had been engaged in the BBQ start-up 18 months earlier to develop and launch an integrated brand strategy. The amazing part of the story,” says Bergeron, “is their website had gone live just weeks before City Lights called our client. That’s the power of the Internet and search marketing.”
Bergeron Creative produced animated banner and display ads to promote Kill’em-n-Grill’em BBQ products. Ad themes included “Smoking Hot Chicks” and “Bone Lick’n Good.” This award-winning ad campaign used humor with attitude to create unique, compelling ads that draw the viewer in.
We developed a full line of clothing and BBQ accessories. The idea is to get consumers, to identify with the brand by promoting the biker barbecue lifestyle. The BBQ Buddy™ we developed, won a “Best New Product” Award from the National Barbecue Association.
After the launch of their new website, sales at Kill’em-n-Grill’em BBQ accelerated from 0 to 100, far exceeding the goals outlined in the marketing plan we developed with them.
According to Charlie Wilson, “Our website launched and Discovery Channel called — that’s all you need to know about Bergeron Creative.”
Call us at 617-834-4840 | al@bergeroncreative.com