Why The Stick Figure Dad?
If you are our regular customer, you might have wondered why our Father’s Day menu looks so different this time. What happened to all our flashy colours and cute designs that make you want to just click photos and not consume them? Well, when the final design was revealed to the rest of the team, we too were just as shocked as you. The design this time was simple and plain, plainer than any other cake we had baked so far. But, at the same time, something about it was so moving and powerful that we really couldn’t put a finger on it until Megna explained it to us. Before we get to understand why the design worked, let’s learn a bit about Megna’s father and how she came to finalise this theme.
About Pa, From Megna
When we asked Megna about her dad, she started her small talk by drawing a comparison between her unorganised and scrambled self against her disciplined and organised father. She voiced that she admired his open-mindedness and his desire to encourage everyone’s dreams. From her descriptions, he seemed to be an individual who believes that discipline, self-motivation and hard work are crucial to reaching one’s ultimate potential, or self-actualisation in Maslow’s terms. Megna also attributes the driving force behind running Dream a Dozen as being heavily influenced by her father. When asked about any tradition or activity they did together when she was a kid, she revealed their fondness for playing the default snake game available on those old button phones you rarely see around now. It’s quite adorable if we say so ourselves.
So, How Was 2022 Different?
1. The Inclusive Father Figure
We already mentioned before that the menu this time looked totally different from our previous ones. Why did this happen? Well, this year’s Father’s Day menu was a result of the realisation that all dads don’t really look the same. Even if Father’s Day is traditionally about appreciating our pa, all our fathers don’t really appear similar, do they?
As you can see here, a pa can be old or new, tall or short, plump or skinny, or happy or grumpy. Then, the question arose of how we could represent all these images in one single cake without succumbing to the stereotypical image of the Indian father with a moustache and a pot belly?
After having done four years of prior research to decide on the Father’s Day menu, Megna landed on the idea of stick figures. She decided that the stick figure was perfect since it had no face or gender. It could literally represent any person in our life. It can be our fathers who always silently looked out for us, the grandfather who always stressed the importance of drinking hot water and morning walks, the shopkeeper across the street who always warned us to cross the streets carefully, the single parent who played two roles in the house and even the bakery uncle who always slipped in a few extra candies in your bag, winking at you to let you in on his intentions when ma wasn’t looking. All these people are poles apart and have walked different paths in the game of life. But, there is one thing we share when we think about all of them—we look up to them and want to be like them. This was what Megna decided to depict in the theme cake this year. Can you see it now?
2. We Let You Decide The Cake Design
If you follow us on Instagram, you might have seen us put up a poll to choose among the three tentative designs we had for the Father’s Day menu. Both Cake 1 and 3 were inspired by popular representations of an Indian dad and contained our signature touch of colour and cuteness. Cake 2, however, depicted two stick figures inspired by an image of us gazing up at the stars, something we look up to all the time. We added a slight twist to Cake 2 too and replaced the starry sky with our pa, the star we all aspire to be one day. The results too seemed to agree with our intentions and we went with Option 2 which had the most votes and which, all of you seemed to be able to relate to the most as well.
3. We Included The Dessert Circle In Our Marketing Campaign!
This time, we also did something very different in our marketing campaign. We sent ten gift boxes to our regular customers (also members of our dessert circle) and asked them to film real-time, the reaction their fathers showed upon receiving and opening the box. If you don’t know what Dessert Circle is, you’re seriously missing out. It’s our community of dessert lovers that’s open for people from all over the world to join in with their fellow sweet tooths. We’ll be holding monthly Zoom game nights, menu tasting, group conversations and many other activities where you get a say as well! Plus points if you’re in Bangalore for you’ll also be getting a box of free desserts during campaigns like this. That said, the footage and photos we received totally made our day and warmed our hearts so there’s a high chance that we might do this again. We even made a reel compiling the cutest moments from all the footage we received since we couldn’t hold back from sharing them with you all. The fathers’ reaction during this little activity further fuelled our confidence in this menu and made us believe that you really appreciated our efforts to be inclusive.
Post Script
What we have learnt from our four years of baking and creating menus for occasions like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day is that emotions are more important than the image. We can only sustain as a brand if we connect with people on a human level. The concept of a parental figure has changed over generations and to be relatable to each and every one of them, we need to adapt accordingly. For this reason, we've attempted to take the first step to be as close to you as possible.
Yours Dessertfully,
Adithi Kashyap
Content Writer, Dream a Dozen