SPEAKER_00 0:00

In this episode of the Hospital Dojo Podcast, I chat with Tony Ibbertson, founder of the Creative Method, the design studio behind brands like Guzmani Gomez, Soul Origin, and Olla. We talk about why branding matters and how storytelling can help your venue stand out and stay remembered. This episode is proudly brought to you by Food and Hospitality Week, a major event in Australia's hospitality calendar connecting 15,000 chefs, owners, and industry professionals every year.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Tony Ibbotson, Tony Ibbo, Ebbo, the founder and creative director of the Creative Method. Amazing. A brand and packaging agency specializing in the food and beverage industry. And a career spending over 30 years, mate. You don't look that old.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

You look younger than me. Oh, yeah. So I'll hide it with the hat, don't worry.

SPEAKER_02 0:55

I want some real estate going on. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

I'll hide it with the hat. Mate, you've consulted in countries like Japan, Thailand, China, USA, UK, Australia, and brands such as Mars, Walker's, Diaggio, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Smurnoff, Johnny Walker, Kampari, PepsiCo.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

And you founded the creative method in the humble city of Sydney back in 05.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

That's right, yeah. People love to eat and drink.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Congratulations, Tony. What a beautiful career you've had. It's magical.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

Well, it's research, you know. I love to um we love to eat and drink to excess. Research.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

That's what we're doing. You you you really are inspiration, honestly, mate. My man, like too much. No, it's good. You you really you really done um you've really done some amazing stuff. Tony, can you give us a little bit of a bit about your journey in the world of branding?

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Yeah, well, to be honest, I I kind of ended up with my own business as a bit of um bit by accident. I was working for a big global agency here in Sydney, and um they were just going through some uh selling to another company, and um I was design director and I was working on Unilever and Diario. They were my two accounts. Um I I was called design director, but I wasn't directing anyone. Um, they were flogging us, so I'd probably start at eight in the morning, finish at 10 at night. That would go on for four or five days a week. Um after I suppose a couple of years of this, I said, Um, hey, I'm doing all the work. Um, maybe you can give me some staff. They said no. Um, so it's like, well, well, I'm pretty sure you're paying for my wages and my overtime alone. Maybe you can give me a pay rise. They said no. Um, so I left. And when I left, literally um, I think a month later, um, DiAgio phoned up my clients and they said, Well, you were doing our work. If you can pull together an estimate, we'll give you a job. Same thing happened with Unilever, and um also at the same time I met um a guy called Stephen Marks in a in a pub in Sydney who wanted to start a brand called Guzmani Gomez. So overnight I ended up with um, yeah, my own business.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yeah, I still can't put an estimate together, I still can't spell.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

That's phenomenal, man. And and and you know, though those opportunities are those ones that happen sort of that once-in-a-lifetime moment, right? And I guess for you when you started branding, like br in the in the design world, I just want to cycle back a little bit. Yeah, I'm not I'm not discrediting what you said, it's like phenomenal. But what was that point in in your career early on when you were slogging those hours that you had that aha moment that said, This is what I want to do for the rest of my life?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Yeah, well, I reckon, yeah, we go back even further, where um, you know, back in the day when I was going through high school, um you know, I was 15 and you get to choose your your subjects that you want to do, right? And I chose art, and my mum goes, You're not doing art, there's no money in art. Um, if you want to do something creative, you you you can be an architect, right? So she's had me starting on technical drawing, and in the in the day it was um calculus and physics. Now, I don't know about you, but when they introduced the alphabet into maths, it's like I'm done. I can't even it's the same thing for me. Yeah, I'm done.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I'm out, I'm out, I can't even spell, and now you've ruined maths. I can do financial math. Give me give me any data sets to study, but I cannot, for the life of me, when I see a letter like an A or B next to a number, forget about it. Yeah, yeah. My wife, amazing. Yeah, she can do algebra with her eyes closed, but she guess what? She loves English. Yeah, yeah. I I yeah, yeah, ridiculous, ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

So it became very apparent really early on that I wasn't going to be an architect. All right, those buildings would have fallen down a long time ago. So then it um um I actually in order to do that, I had to do an extra year at at high school because again, I failed these subjects and and mum was pretty hardcore on me.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

You had to repeat high school.

SPEAKER_02 5:07

I had to repeat high school. So all my my mates went off to the uni and what have you, and I I stayed back. And so I did another year, and um again, I I barely passed these subjects. And um I said at the end of the year, it's like well, I'm not doing this, I'm gonna go to design school. And the design school in Christchurch in New Zealand, they took on 20 people, and um, and I was lucky enough to get in. Wow, and so it you know, from from that point on, it was like, look, this is what this is what I love to do. Yeah, and and I think like anything, the key to any success and and hospitality industry is is massively reflective of this. You've got to work your ass off, you've got to work really hard and you've got to be really passionate about what you do. Um, and I think I was just lucky from a really early age, I knew that um I wanted to colour in.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

That's beautiful. And and touching on the hospitality business, why is branding so important for hospitality businesses?

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Oh yeah, I I think again, uh you know, I was just talking over there before around you know, storytelling is the oldest form of branding, and and you know, if you go back way back in the day, um, people would talk about their produce and and you know, and what they've made and and how they've made it. And you know, I think that that lies at the heart of you know food. And food is um is brought together cultures and and people for for years, right? And you know, sitting around the the table, having conversations with family and friends, you know, that it's it's the way culturally that that we've connected since since day dot. And I think you know, branding and food is really just an extension of that. It's like, well, what's the story? What makes you unique? And how do you make people feel something about your brand? How do you connect with people in an emotional way?

SPEAKER_01 7:00

And food's great like that because you can taste it and go, oh man, yeah, it hits it hits different, you know, um different uh what'd say, like like targets in your brain too, like because you you you get it's tight it's tangible, yeah. Uh you have different feelings, you have and and it and it sometimes as well food has a sense of nostalgia.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Yeah, totally. And if you can yeah, if you can wrap that up with a story or or or something emotional that again makes people feel something, they'll they'll remember it and they'll remember that occasion. And I think that you know the the two are really quite sort of tightly.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Thousand percent. I I went to one restaurant in Singapore once, um place called Nori, Chef Yvan. He takes you on this journey and he he studies history. You would love this place. Um and he did this okra dish, and my late step-grandmother used to cook okra quite a bit. Um, and he did this dish that that when I ate it, it took me back to when I was 11 years old. And I was like, Yeah. And I was just in the middle of Singapore, and I'm like, man, how'd you do that? You know, like I haven't tasted that since you know over 12-15 years ago. Like, what the hell? Where'd that come from?

SPEAKER_02 8:11

It's just engaging those senses.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

And it's just engaging those senses and the and that type of part, and you'll never forget it. Like, you know, I'm getting to share this story. I've you could imagine how many places I've eaten that, and I can go back to that and go dial that in. Yeah, I hit nostalgia, I remember food, and I go back to this place. Yeah, and that's so critically important that your brand reflects reflects that. 100%.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

It's about how you make people feel, right? People people will forget what you do, but they'll never forget how you make them feel.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Now there are a lot of people out there, especially in the startup sector, that we help out at the hospital dojo going on their business journey when they're starting, and and they tune into these podcasts to get a bit of inspiration and some insight onto you know how they can go about it. They might be bootstrapping when they start.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

So, you know, they can't afford consultants or brand designers and and stuff like that. And they, you know, they try to piece things together. Yep. What's one what's your general process when developing a brand identity for a client that you could like sort of share, give some insight that potentially, you know, a hospopreneur, like I like to call them, wants to wants to get started with and probably just try build out his own brand when he gets started, he or she gets started.

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah, it's a it's a really good question. And and I think first and foremost, you start with the food, right? Make sure that your food is the best that you can possibly make. And you, you know, and if your food's great, then then you know it it it really forms the foundation of your brand. So make sure that your your products bang on. Then when when people ask us, all right, well, what what bit shall I do? Um, I'm a big fan of just do a great takeaway bag. All right? If your takeaway bag, and we had this uh philosophy, you know, right when we started GYG, G Guzman and Gomez, is like we want people will have never seen this brand before. We want people to see this takeaway bag as they're walking down the street and go, what is that? I don't know what it is, but I I want to I want to know what it is, and if I do know what it is, I want to go back back to it. So, you know, your takeaway packaging is is we often sort of say it's it's the closest to um free advertising, is what you're gonna get. And it also makes you look bigger and better than what what you might be. And and again, I think it's a really good example. When GYG started, people didn't know what a um uh a black bean was, right? They thought it was an olive, right? People had no understanding of of Mexican food, and from day dot, and Stephen Marks had the money to to make it happen, but the the view was this first store in Newtown in Sydney needs to look like it's part of a 200 store chain. Now, most people when they're starting out, they can't do that, but I would go, you know, do some great packaging, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

What can make you what is what is the bare minimum that can make you feel that way? Like for me, I I totally understand, you know, we we can do that. The way that like if I look at it at it from a business sense, um, and I was in the fit out game for over 10 years, so I used to build these stores for a lot of people, and the way that to help you know add value to what you're saying with the packaging side, when you're doing a retail fit out and you you want to immerse people in in the store, don't go for a large footprint store. Let's try and make it a lot smaller, right? And if you if you make the retail section of your store a lot smaller, yet the retail front is where you spend a lot of the money in the detail joinery and the signage and the lights, so the smaller square meter and and the percentage of that of your entire area, because building a kitchen compared to a front of house section is probably about 30% of the cost of that, yeah, from the tiling to besides the services and stuff. But I'm saying from an aesthetic perspective, you know, you just need white tiles on a wall.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

It's a really good shower. You keep it small, and then it always looks full.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

It always looks cool, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Do you know uh look another little story off the back of that is when GYG had three stores, uh, they were opening one in in King's Cross, and Stephen said, I want to do a free burrito flyer drop to everyone in the neighborhood, right? Um he goes, I'll give away a free burrito. We made these flyers and they they went out to everyone around the cross. I think it I think we got about 5% return. Now 5% in in DM is is actually quite quite big, but he lost a shit. He lost it. He's going, I can't believe this. I I'm giving people a free burrito and they don't want it. They don't want to come in and and get a free burrito, yeah. So we stopped doing the flyer and started doing free burrito from the store, right? So that's when they started getting lines coming out of the store. So for anyone starting out, you go, all right, well, how do you get a line outside your store? You know, you give us you know, let's say you give give food away, give your product away for half a day, create a line, get those people, give them the best food you can make, and then they will do the selling for you. And that line will do the selling for you.

SPEAKER_01 13:15

That's amazing. Yeah, that's a a thousand percent. So so if the if the the DM didn't work, the direct marketing that you're talking about with a fly drop, how do you do it in store?

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Yeah, so uh he did it in store by giving burritos away from the five. Oh, just standing there with the burritos there and going, yep, free burrito day. Created a sign, free burrito day.

SPEAKER_01 13:36

Come and grab your free burrito day.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

And then I think uh I now they charge for them. I think now it's a five dollar burrito day. Yeah, but but they would do eight, nine thousand burritos in a day. Right?

SPEAKER_01 13:46

Crazy.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

But I think that's where the where it trans transformed the brand because it got it got the food in people's mouths, yeah. And people would eat it and go, this is good, and then they would do the selling.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Thousand percent. And yeah, a thousand percent.

SPEAKER_02 14:00

So if your food's good, your what I would say to anyone starting out is how do you get it into mouths and how do you get other people doing the selling for you?

SPEAKER_01 14:09

Nice. What are some what are some key um what do you think besides that we're saying uh the packaging um as an option, yeah, and we we we touched on nostalgia. What are the most common challenges you find when working with hospitality businesses?

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Um, I think you know, a lot of people think it's a logo, you know. A lot of people think if you have a great logo, then you know, and people have come to us and they've they've they've gone well, you've done Red Rooster and you've you've worked with, you know, a lot of these these great places. If we come to you and get a logo, then you know, um we're gonna have a business like like theirs. I think with hospitality and food, there's so many, so many different facets to it. Um, you know, that's that's always a challenge, sort of saying, hey, look, if you want to do what these guys have done, you've got actually got to work out a way of doing it properly. Um, there's a lot of competition in the food space now, it's it's really competitive. Um, I think you you know that's that is probably one of the biggest challenges around getting people to understand that yeah, if you're gonna compete with these guys, you've got to you've got to disrupt.

SPEAKER_01 15:21

Yeah, like we've we've at at the dojo, we've got an 85-page brand guide.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Do you? Yeah. That's pretty serious.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

We've got an 85-page brand guide, and we literally um, you know, I launched this in 2023.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

Yeah. Well, you're doing it properly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

I launched this whole thing in 2023, and you know, I went to a I went to a disruptive branding agent, yeah, um who knows personal brands uh really well, and uh, you know, he's helped me disrupt the sector. Yeah. And but the one thing that we've always been strong on is is is our brand guide. So anything, any collateral, any post we do on Instagram, any lit like any movement we make, any email that we send out, it has to be vetted by our brand guide. Even our tone of voice in our responses.

SPEAKER_03 16:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Um, he now the brand guide revolves around me. Yeah, right. They built it around me so that becomes a lot easier. And that's what I feel like a brand guide should should be a true reference of who you are, yeah, and what you believe in, so then that way you can follow through with it. But I also find that you know you need to, it's not something that sits dormant. You like there are a lot of big corporations that pay for it and then they just don't utilize it. Yeah, we use every single asset that you guys create, yeah, we use every single voice, we use the tone, we know even like we've got some brand no's. Like, don't do not put the brand, like when we're wrapping this bus, the guys that were doing it put our logo on a like a little 15% angle. And I was like, no, like go back to the brand guy. That's a no. Yeah, you can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Can't do that. And and look, you you bang on, especially when you're building a business, you've you've got to be really consistent with the way in which you do it. You know, the likes of KFC and McDonald's are kind of you know leading the way with with how you do these sorts of things properly. But I do think you, you know, you touched on it as well. It's like we you have to be able to look at it and evolve it and and keep asking the question, is is this still true?

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Still true and aligning the same way you're consistent with your food, yeah. You need to be consistent with your brand and your posts and your presence and your marketing and and where you feature and what you do, you know. Yeah, so on the back of that and and and what we've been doing, you know, what advice would you give to a new hospitality business trying to stand out in in the crowded market?

SPEAKER_02 17:37

Yeah, yeah. I I I think again, I I go come back to the food, right? What can you do that's actually going to disrupt, right? Um, and we've all seen these these brands that have come out off the back of one particular dish or or something like that. You know, firstly, yeah, what to your food might be Instagrammable or might disrupt, or you know, how do you get that that cut through and and stand out for a start? So I think, you know, really looking to do something different. I mean, um, you know, you love your brands, you know, and it's not directly related to hospitality, but um, you know, liquid death water um completely disrupted the market because it was based on solving a problem around, hey, you know what, people that go to music festivals, they might want to hold a product that is just a little bit cooler than a water bottle, right? So it goes in a can, it's called liquid death. It's not gonna it, you know, they didn't build that brand for it to go on on the shelf in the supermarket, right? And most people would go, well, you can't do that, but if you understand your market and where you're selling to, then you can really disrupt if you're brave enough.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

A thousand percent. Right?

SPEAKER_02 18:52

So there's a there's a you know, there's there's a boldness and a braveness to it, but yeah, understand your market again, and then if you do that right, then those people will do the selling for you.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Yeah, it's crazy. Like you see, you see these people literally buying cans of water, yeah. Um, that are supporting this because they feel like it it it replicates them. That's right, and they feel a sense of connection, right? And nostalgia, yeah. Liquid death, but it's it's water, it's water in a can. In a can.

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Yeah, I grew up in New Zealand where we got water out of a tap, and we used to think, geez, I'm never gonna pay for water, and then bottled water comes along, and now it's like you know, liquid death. It's like it's you know, it's mad. But I love I love that though, because it was about solving a problem that it was tapping into this need that people, younger people, wanted something that that did kind of reflect more of them.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

That's phenomenal. What what do you think? And this is just a gut-shot call, what do you think the next trends are going to be for next year?

SPEAKER_02 19:48

Well, in in the food space, I'd say hands down, um, Middle Eastern, Middle Eastern, Lebanese. I think if you look at what what happened with the um Mexican trend, um we can very easily map and see what's what's coming around. Um, you know, and it it's really the same, the same sort of thing. When Mexican sort of came along, people didn't really have much of an idea of what Mexic good Mexican cuisine was. It was El Paso in the supermarket. Lebanese Middle Eastern has been coming for a while now. Um, you can build and and structure a business in a very similar way. You have your grilled meats, you have your you know, your the processes are very similar, yeah. Very similar, and and where they've been lacking in the past is that the brands just haven't reflected the the quality of of the food.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Yeah, I guess the brands have always tend to localize themselves, yeah, rather than you know, create an openness in communication. Yeah. I think a brand now which is which is dominating in the in the charcoal chicken space, which is El Jana. Yep, they've sort of take that gentrified approach.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Yeah, and you know finally finally with Eljana, when we worked with El Jana, I thought when they when we first met them, I thought, you know what, we can do a bit of a GYG on this, we can potentially leverage into Lebanese culture um in a really interesting and modern way. And I suggested this to the owner, and the owner and his sons were in the meeting, and his his son is um sort of said, Hey, I I don't believe food and and culture um should be should be together. And I'm going, bro, food food is culture. Yeah, you know, that this is what food is.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

It stands for, right?

SPEAKER_02 21:32

But his father was concerned that some people um would go, hey, I don't like Lebanese food, right? And and the strategy was if you make this look Australian, right, and and you know, appeal to Australians, then people will try it and go, I really like that. And it's like, oh, you know it's Lebanese and Middle Eastern, right? Right. So you you know, there was a little bit of um concern and thought around that, and I I believe you know um Ibby yeah from yeah Ibby and George yeah so when Henrietta's when he launched Henrietta's right that was the same thing he's like well I'm gonna do Middle Eastern you know Lebanese chicken but I d I want people to think that it's American taste it and then go wow what is this this is amazing and then and then educate right and when we first did that brand that was that was what he did then when he sort of um came to Melbourne here he said uh I think people now are ready to have to dial in for the Lebanese a modern take take on um Middle Eastern Lebanese so you know you look at the the the branding and graphics that we did for that it was really leaning into Arabic text and and and really sort of trying to you know even the beer yeah yeah yeah you know so it's so it's it's been happening for a while um but I think in terms of the QSR space you'll see a lot of stuff happening there.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yeah and there's a lot of guys that are you know frontiering frontiering that as well yeah um if you see Aliseal yeah they're doing a great job at doing that as well as with their dips that they're they're launching Mazati and stuff like that into um into onto the shelves so I think a good reflection of of if anyone's really looking at trends that are coming up go to your local supermarket see what's on the shelves see what's available because if Coles and woolies have it as the item after three months it's staying for good right otherwise it's cancelled. Yeah so so if you see those products that are coming time and time again new products are coming into the market that's a real good way to do those market research to see the trends of what's coming that's how I always see it you know because if the the adapted taste is there and it's going to the masses in family homes then people want maybe an elevated experience to then also be able to enjoy that somewhere else.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

And that's a really good point I think especially around Middle Eastern and Lebanese brands it's like how do you elevate it right because so um Andre from Eljana his son Charles has just started a um uh a brand called Sharifs right um which is you know hearing the the Schwama yeah and he said I don't believe that a lot of people have tasted a really good shawarma right and and then and then we kind of discussed it for a while and and you know the problem that we were trying to address is that a lot of people think of it as it's a kebab right a lot of people think it's a kebab and and a lot of people think well this is just what you have at three o'clock in the morning when you've stumbled out of the pub of the nightclub so it's like well how do you elevate it how do you make it look better how do you make it look more more desirable um so we when we were building that brand we really heavily leaned into um Lebanon and Beirut of the 19 uh sixties and 70s which was the Paris of the Middle East all right and you can see that through the fit out it looks sensational yeah the communication and the offering um and it looks like a place of a hundred stores so you and it's going off you nailed it's going off you really nailed it you nailed that brief but again good food that those those shuamas phenomenal they're really good well mate look I I I can't wait to take you to my grandfather's backyard and try some great food and then we'll see if we can create a new brand I wouldn't mind giving this bar a bit giving the bar a oh well thank you so much my man Tony it's been a pleasure it's an honor and uh I look forward to staying in touch and thanks for coming down to Food and Hostely Week uh the team here have loved having you um are you doing any talks today I've I've just finished one um yeah over um yeah in the business area about um storytelling beautiful amazing thank you so much again Tony thank you very much I look forward to uh chatting up with you soon cheers