The Gribble Dare Kit: a hot sauce bottle and the lava-gremlin figure in a black gift box
Case study · Hot sauce

Gribble

Every extreme hot sauce sells fear. We built one that sells attitude.

Category

Extreme hot sauce

Audience

Chiliheads who've tried everything

Delivered

All 8 deliverables of the 0→1 Sprint, from one concept and one creative direction

What was delivered

The eight sprint deliverables. All of them.

One concept and one creative direction, carried through every deliverable a launch needs. Tap any one to jump to it.

  1. 01Brand strategyPosition, audience, message
  2. 02Logo + suiteWordmark, face mark, rules
  3. 03Brand guidelines49-page hub, Figma system, client package
  4. 04WebsiteLive store, phone first
  5. 05CollateralRetail, merch, gifting
  6. 06PackagingHero bottle + 4-SKU range
  7. 07Launch posts + adsSocial and out-of-home
  8. 08Film + logo animation30s ad, animated marks
The concept

Small bottle.
Big mouth.

A tiny thing that talks an absurd amount of trash, and backs it up. The brand lives in one character: a grumpy lava gremlin who is certain you'll tap out first. Calm, he's dark rock. Dare him and he glows.

Outlaw, the danger + Jester, the wink = the troublemaker

Gribble, the grumpy lava gremlin, in a collector blister pack
The creative direction

Four rules every deliverable follows.

  1. Gribble expression sheet
    01A character, not a warning label.

    Gribble carries the brand. Never smiling: grumpy, smug or furious.

  2. Bottles glowing on black
    02Heat is light.

    Everything glows from within, on near-black. Never flat colour, never bright and airy.

  3. Gribble billboard with sunburst
    03Comic-poster energy.

    Radial sunburst, bold outlines, a stacked wordmark. Loud and fun, never horror.

  4. Diner scene with Gribble on the table
    04A real world, one glowing thing.

    Warm, ordinary places. Gribble is the only thing in frame that isn't real.

01
Deliverable · Brand strategy

Map the obvious. Then refuse it.

The category
Gribble
Theme
Death, hell, insanity
A cocky character with a temper
Imagery
Skulls, devils, reapers
A lovable lava menace
Tone
"WARNING: may cause death"
"One more drop. We dare you."
Colour
Black, blood red, toxic green
Volcanic black, molten orange, one teal wink
Feeling
Intimidation
A cocky challenge
9Competitors audited
301Customer reviews read
81%Of the map's claims verified
The insight

Extreme hot sauce is built to be survived once. Nothing in the category gives you a reason for round two.

Positioning

For chiliheads who've conquered everything on the shelf, Gribble is the only extreme heat that taunts you back.

Audience

They've done the Reaper and watch Hot Ones. They're bored of identical bottles. They want a rival, not a warning.

The catch we designed for

The dare only works if the sauce tastes good. So the brand never promises pain. Heat is the personality; flavour is why you stay.

Message

One more drop. We dare you.
Stupidly hot · Annoyingly good · A character worth shelving

02
Deliverable · Logo + suite

One creature, two marks.

Logo guide spreads: lockups, clear space, configurations, colour, scale, misuse and placement
  • The wordmark.Hand-drawn comic letters, cream fill, red outline, a flame accent. A deliberate break from horror type.
  • The face mark.Gribble "fired up". For caps, stickers, app icons and anywhere the full character won't read.
  • The suite.Full colour plus black, white and red one-colour versions, as SVG and PNG, with a 26-page logo guide: clear space, minimum size, misuse.
03
Deliverable · Brand guidelines

Loud, but on a strict budget.

All 49 pages of the Gribble brand guidelines hub, laid out in a grid
Palette
Volcanic
Black
#0C0A09
Molten
Orange
#FF5A1F
Bone
Cream
#EFE3C2
Ember
Red
#B22222
Charred

#1C1614
Dare
Teal
#2BA199

Colour budget per layout. Teal gets one element, usually the dare ribbon.

Heat ladder · one glow per SKU
Simmer

#94180B
Scorch

#FF5A1F
Meltdown
Gold
#FFC24A
Eruption
Ice
#9FD0FF

Every pairing is measured. Ember Red fails as text on black (2.96:1), so the rule is red for fills, never for text.

Display · taunts

You won't.

Impact · numbers

One more drop

Body

Clean, so the loud stuff stays loud.

Gribble character reference
Typography page: one shouts, one talks
  • He never smiles.Grumpy, smug or furious. Unimpressed is the default.
  • He glows from inside.Light comes out of the cracks, never painted on.
  • He looks up at you.Staged low, glaring up: the little guy with the big mouth.
49-page guidelines hubFigma brand system32 design tokens28-file client package
Open the brand guidelines ↗
04
Deliverable · Website

A shop that talks like the bottle.

Gribble store home page: We dare you, over a glowing lava rock
Gribble store shop page: Pick your fight, with the bottle, the Dare Kit and the figure

Black, glowing, one orange call to action: "Take the dare." The shop turns choosing a sauce into picking a fight, a tally of drops keeps score as you scroll, and the comparison table's taste row comes straight from what 301 real reviewers complained about. Designed for the phone first.

HomeShopCartCheckout
Visit the live store ↗
05
Deliverable · Collateral

A character sells more than sauce.

Gribble retail shelf display with the character on top
Retail display
Three hanging in-store banners
In-store banners
06
Deliverable · Packaging

Same Gribble. Angrier each time.

The hero bottle stays canon. The range adds no new mascots or themes: the glow climbs the spectrum with the heat, so the family reads at a glance on the shelf.

Simmer bottle, deep ember red glow
Hot · grumpy

Simmer

Warming up.
Scorch bottle, molten orange glow
Very hot · smug

Scorch

Now we're talking.
Meltdown bottle, orange to yellow glow
Ridiculous · the original

Meltdown

One more drop. We dare you.
Total Eruption bottle, white-blue glow
Insane · limited

Total Eruption

You won't. You really won't.

In 3D

All four labels wrapped on a 3D bottle model, from Simmer to Total Eruption.

Beyond the bottle

Gribble Dare Kit: a bottle and the figure inside a black gift box with a sunburst lid
Dare Kit · gift box
Gribble bottle with a neck tag, beside the figure
Neck tag
07
Deliverable · Launch posts + ads

Every post is a dare.

Diner customer laughing through the heat next to Gribble
Social
Gribble sauce poured over fries
Social
Billboard: grandma pours Gribble, One more drop, We dare you
Billboard
Billboard: Gribble, Bite the heat
Billboard

Reels

The pour is the whole demo, but the mascot watches it like a supervisor. The sauce has an opinion about how much you're using.
The film's twist, recut for the feed: the man is destroyed, the grandma isn't. The brand's flex is who doesn't flinch.
Unboxed like a collectible drop, not a condiment. Hot sauce shelved next to sneakers instead of ketchup.
He doesn't leave when the ad ends. A security-cam timestamp, a 3am kitchen, still glowing by the milk: he lives at your house now.
One more drop. We dare you.You won't.Still here?Small bottle. Big mouth.Tap out or top up.He's small. He's mad. He wins.

The taunt bank: captions and headlines in Gribble's voice. Short jabs, second person, never cruel.

08
Deliverable · Launch film + logo animation

30 seconds. One running gag.

Everyone fails the dare, until a sweet grandma pours on more and leaves Gribble speechless.

Hook0:00–0:05
The dare0:05–0:10
Escalation0:10–0:15
The twist0:15–0:23 · the money beat
Product0:23–0:26
End card0:26–0:30
Music energy0:15 · everything cuts to silence0:30
Logo animation · drop & wobble
Tagline animation

Live animations. Hit replay inside each frame.

Your turn

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