With Natalie Ranger and Illustrator Camille Bozzini I developed a brand for a new Riviera product. They had a machine that could make custard, but was sitting there unused.

Custard is simple, unflustered. This led us to developing their Custardology, which we made into a little handwritten book and a poster for them.

Once we found custardology we realised all custard needs is a spoon. From there we created Custard & Spoon and developed really exciting integrated ideas. We kick started it by writing tons of simple one-hit stories for the chilled custard lids – each separate lid was a cartoon so they were interchangable.

Here are a few of our stories…

And the chocolate flavour ones

Custard & Spoon are best friends. They spend their days doing things to keep themselves entertained. We often bear witness to brief snapshots of their day as they happen. They live in a simple, realistic world (they would never go into space) where any little thing can be exciting or a bit of an adventure.

Who is Custard?
He’s energetic, inquisitive and a bit slow. He’ll try anything once. He wears his heart on his sleeve and can be cheeky and a bit of a trouble maker. He always thinks he’s right, but he also loves Spoon, as a friend.

Who is Spoon?
He’s sensible, has a tendency to be a bit camp. He’s smarter than Custard but doesn’t gloat about it. He’s a bit geeky and yet more of the older brother. He’s patient and likes to dress up.

The Devil’s in the detail
Now the pot of custard doesn’t actually come with a spoon. So to warn worried parents we thought we’d go over the top and develop a series of unique messages that say Spoon in not actually included. These sat on the 4 packs and on trays of custard.

We developed advertising to introduce them to the mums and we’re looking to make a cartoon series, have a mini-site on Nickelodeon and seed cartoons and games across the internet to get kids excited by the characters and see them as entertainment.

For sampling we have limited edition spoons with eyes and sticky eyes for kids to put on their pots or anywhere else they like.

It may sound dull but all this work researched incredibly. The audience loved it. Mums and kids. One mum even thought that all Riviera do all day is think about Custard.