A Brand’s Future: Hatched With AI

Long story short

Cobb engaged us to revitalize its century-old brand; to make it feel not only modern but also futureproof — which meant making Cobb look like no other chicken company that has come before.

We turned to artificial intelligence (AI) to bring The Cobb Edge — our new brand concept — to life. Not serving as the catalyst for the idea, AI instead became our lens to capture the new brand story: “Focusing on the smallest things means Cobb is always on the edge of something big.”

Prompt after prompt and through thousands of refinements, we worked with AI to capture highly detailed images that were scientifically correct and undeniably dramatic. And this extreme focus on details aligned with the entire design system — brand imagery, textures, color extractions, and even how parallaxing elements moved.

The result: a complete reinvention of the brand, teleporting Cobb across a century of time and into the future.

About the client company

Cobb is a leader in poultry genetics. Their innovation direction is focused on the fusion of technology, animal health and genetics, with a passion to deliver high-quality products and continuous innovation.

With more than 100 years of genetic progress made, Cobb has had a huge role in helping contribute to the world’s food security, sustainability and affordable protein supply. And its global impact is felt with biosecure operations in 10 countries, spread around five continents.

Strategy

Cobb is a company with a centurylong legacy. Starting as a chicken farm 108 years ago, it now is a global pioneer in poultry genetics — but the previous branding didn’t reflect those pursuits and seemed stuck in the past.

Cobb engaged us to revitalize that brand; to make it feel not only modern but also futureproof — which meant making Cobb look like no other chicken company that has come before.

Objectives of the campaign

We started by taking a closer look at Cobb to achieve a distinct rebrand. It’s a company known for giving customers an edge by examining every detail, engineering new genetics and finding all the small ways to make a huge impact. So we decided to follow Cobb’s lead.

We knew we needed to zoom in to every part of the business — the chicken, the egg, the feed, the nest, the genes, etc. And that required a new set of tools to capture every detail, like never before.

Using our AI camera in early rounds of the rebrand, we quickly realized how much of an iterative process this would be for a poultry genetics company that is hyperfocused on the details.

It took the coordination of our clients’ chicken experts, marketing and product teams and our creative teams to sort through these images — adjusting, refining and finessing them — until all the details were undisguisable from the real thing but also like nothing the industry had seen before.

AI also gave us an advantage in production, because we didn’t need to coordinate the photographer, chicken wrangler, egg polisher, nest designer, etc. — the images were all being generated through one source.

One thing was crucial throughout the process: We ensured the AI visuals were curated and recrafted by human hands to feel cohesive with the other brand elements.

The target audience

Poultry farmers and operation decision-makers were the target audience. There’s a new generation of operators and farmers emerging — and they are looking for the innovative solutions to give them a cutting-edge, especially when margins are so tight.

Media, channels or techniques use

This complete brand redesign reached across all major touch points: a new brand video, print ads, social media templates, email signatures, Zoom backgrounds, trade show assets and more.

Timescales of the campaign

Because of the collaborative nature of this process and the constant back-and-forth between Cobb and our designers, process was more iterative than phased out. The overall rebrand took five months in total.

Budgets

$200,000

Results

We debuted the revitalized Cobb brand at the industry’s biggest trade show, the International Production and Processing Expo (IPPE). The AI images became the backdrop of Cobb’s floor space, as an anthem video driven by the new rebrand played on an immersive screen. The introduction of the new identity at IPPE generated buzz and overwhelmingly positive feedback from customers, the industry and even the competition.

Since then, we’ve rolled out the new branding to every touch point, establishing a clean, forward-looking image emblematic of where Cobb will continue to grow during the years ahead as its business transformation continues.

In addition, during the latest grant cycle for its research initiative, Cobb received more high-quality proposals ever with a quarter of proposals centered around AI and over half from international institutions, leading to partnerships with top researchers from around the globe.

Client Testimonial

When it comes to AI’s involvement, Cobb’s VP of marketing shared this:

“The use of AI reflects our transformation into a modern genetics company. It’s not something I thought Cobb could be when I started here, but this look and feel is what the future of Cobb is.”