Tipperary Dry Aged Beef
Photography: A fox in the kitchen
The mission
Tipperary Dry Aged Beef, also known as TDA Beef, is a B2B brand which produces a premium dry aged beef range. Sold in Michelin-starred restaurants throughout Ireland and Europe, the brand had a strong reputation but wanted to grow their market share. They wanted a brand strategy and identity that would differentiate TDA Beef from the competition and drive recognition and awareness for the brand, both nationally and internationally. This project began with an initial brand development phase with our strategy team, which then led into a very practical production of packaging, sales assets and website development to bring the brand to life in the real world.
The question
How do you bring a new appeal to a simple ingredient?
From a branding perspective, the raw ingredients behind the Tipperary Dry Aged Beef brand were impeccable: Irish origin, a unique dry ageing process using locally sourced Irish Atlantic Sea Salt™, provenance, traceability, pedigree, craftsmanship, sustainability, and a brilliant brand story of generational farmers and devotion to quality. For this product, their ideal customer is a young, brilliant chef. This audience is sophisticated, savvy, and hard to impress. The key to making Tipperary Dry Aged Beef stand out from all the other premium market offerings was to turn this beef into a rockstar.
The process
After meetings and interviews we learned about the truly unique point of difference in Tipperary Dry Aged Beef: its use of Irish Atlantic Sea Salt™. This salt, harvested from West Cork’s Beara Peninsula, imparts an unmistakable subtlety of flavour during the dry ageing process and sets it apart from other competitors who use Himalayan salt. First, we shortened the name to TDA Beef. The shorter name shifted the brand into a more contemporary, relevant space. Next, we developed the positioning statement Awaken the Senses. Visually, the brand identity took cues from the dry ageing process itself, with a fearless brandmark that played on the concept of a meat hook, a dark palette that hits all the quality cues, and a punch of orange that brings to life the vibrant nature of the product. We offered style touchpoints and creative direction to help them develop a photography style that puts the beef into a hero frame.
The transformation
The rebranding of TDA Beef created cut-through in an ever-increasing commodity market. The website was a key output, as it was designed to position the brand internationally and speak directly to chefs and buyers of beef at the highest levels of the industry. It’s an effective showcase for TDA Beef and an anchor for their innovative social campaigns. We art-directed the photography shoot and supplied a library of images for use on web and social media, capturing TDA’s ultra premium feel. As their new identity was rolled out across their packaging and sales assets, it has been a clear winner in terms of building brand recognition and loyalty in some of the world’s top kitchens.
