CASE STUDY

Client: Gateretail

Photo shoot for a leading airline’s onboard menu

Date: 2017

Gateretail produced a series of beautiful photos for a menu selling snacks onboard a leading airline’s domestic flights across Brazil. Story Productions successfully translated the client’s global brand guidelines to a Brazilian context, appealing to local tastes.
beer and nuts
Brigadeiros
sandwiches on a chopping board

THE CONTEXT

Airline meals have got an image problem, without a doubt. They’re regularly named and shamed on Twitter (check out #planefood for some of the worst offenders). One airline even called in Michelin-starred chef Heston Blumenthal to have a crack at making their food more palatable in Channel 4’s “Mission Impossible”. So when Gateretail, the world’s largest independent caterer of airline meals, was designing a new onboard menu to sell snacks and meals for a leading airline on domestic flights throughout Brazil, Story Productions was delighted to take on the challenge of making airline food look enticing.

THE CHALLENGE

When Gateretail's head of marketing rang Story Productions in 2017, it was to book a driver for a photo shoot in São Paulo. But it quickly became clear that the client needed more than just logistical support. Story Productions was perfectly placed to step up and gather a talented team to manage most of the production. The challenge? To help Gateretail translate their brand’s global visual identity to a Brazilian menu and a Brazilian audience. And to bring that identity to life in a series of beautiful images, and all with a tight turnaround.

OUR SOLUTION

The first step was to get the right team in place; an art director, a food stylist, a set designer and a prop designer. Next, we chose the right studio for the job; one with plenty of natural light to get the best results for the photos.

Our client provided brand guidelines to work to, setting the visual parameters. These parameters were rooted in Swedish design – Sweden being the home of the global marketing team – with an aesthetic focused on bold colours, minimalism and simplicity. Our challenge was to adapt the guidelines to Brazilian tastes using Brazilian cultural references.
Not only did the Story Productions team provide those cultural insights, we went the extra mile in bringing them to life in front of the camera. The chosen visual identity was a rustic, country-kitchen look, shot on a wooden surface. But when the prop designer couldn’t source a table with the right colour and wood grain to match the brand identity, he built one. The crockery had to look traditional, which in Brazil meant using tin cups and classic ceramic plates. So for authenticity, our art director sourced all the crockery, as well as lace napkins, from her grandmother’s own collection. These personal touches, and creative workarounds, made all the difference to the final look. 
Food stylist preparing a sandwich
When it came to preparing the food, getting the details right was also essential to producing the perfect images. The Story Productions food stylist, Luiz Guedes, worked closely with the chef on the shoot to perfect the presentation. “The dishes themselves were simple; drinks, snacks and sweets” Luiz explains, “so the trick was to focus on each aesthetic detail – the perfect cut, the right crockery, maximising their visual appeal.”

“The photos are what sell the products; if it looks good then customers buy it, so it’s essential for us that they have appeal,” Clarissa Bertola, Gateretail product manager tells us. “We were really happy with the photos – they looked great.”

PRODUCTION NOTES

Story Productions provided a driver, art director, food stylist, set designer and prop designer to shoot 15 dishes. We sourced a studio and specialist photographic equipment for the client’s Swedish photographer.

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