Introduction
Award-winning redesign of Mr Lee, Norway's leading noodle
brand.
Challenge
Rieber & Søn's household noodle brand, Mr Lee, had been
invented and promoted by the real Mr Lee, an orphaned Korean
refugee who had settled in Norway. We were asked to redesign the
brand's identity, avoiding photographic images of its originator,
developing an independent but equally powerful and charismatic
brand personality, able to thrive in a highly competitive
market.
Solution
Our intuition told us that, as well as being an authentic
product, Mr Lee noodles appealed to a youthful audience with a
sense of humour and an appreciation of irreverence and silliness.
This insight, coupled with Chol Ho Lee's own larger than life
character, inspired our caricatured, cartoon Mr Lee. Oozing
personality in his trademark loud shirts, this supremely ownable
and timeless brand icon adapts easily to variants and line
extensions: impersonating Elvis for the king-size pack and morphing
into a Sumo wrestler for the bigger portion version. This funny,
witty and lovable branding is so distinctive that it needs no
visible name on the pack - appearing only on the lid. Mr Lee made
an instant connection with its target audience and won four awards
in the first six months.