A delightfully eccentric origin story pairs well with the highest quality standards. Our in-house team gave a 50-year old brand meaningful voice across modern platforms and a foundation strong enough to iterate and refine through cultural and category shifts.
Wine brings people together.®
Marrying story with meaning
Listening and learning are pivotal first steps in foundational brand strategy. We used these tools to fuel purpose, vision, and values development.
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Discovery Workshops
Personality Catalyst: Hands-on exercises and brainstorming to establish visual and verbal voice, tone, and personality
Brand Lore: Mining for oral or visual histories that bring legacy brands to life
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Brand Immersion
Stakeholder interviews
Secondary research
Category and competitor analysis
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Primary Market Research
Online and in-person surveys developed in-house
Bespoke consumer studies on target populations, in partnership with agencies
Building a brand framework to last.
Vision & positioning were established first - Where can the brand uniquely lead and how must we win?
Brand standards - a “contract” with brand representatives across the company. Agreements had discrete meaning, yet broad application for all brand touchpoints — from landscaping to warehouse shipping and receiving.
Meaningful, yet flexible and modern design elements, such as font, color, texture, line, and icons. One example: botanical illustrations inspired by paintings used for decades by the brand.
Copy and photography/video guideposts to enable freelance partnerships and field sales work.
Rollout of the Oliver brand strategy occurred in phases. I built trust and buy-in in the discovery phase and connected with leaders throughout the company in the development process.
Teaching 100 employees about their role and responsibility to brand standards is phase two, starting with an interactive all-hands presentation and delivery of an easy-to-use brand book and online toolkit. Soon, employees were asking “is this on-brand?”
As the brand evolved and new assets — like a redesigned website, sizzle reel, new product lines, and experiential offerings — were released, we iterated with sub-brand extensions and relevant applications. A Brand 101 training as part of onboarding for new employees.
High-notes in brand effectiveness
Redesigned website: +41% online revenue; +42% organic search traffic
Improved sales effectiveness with consistency across all touchpoints
Visual system extendable across seasonally-themed display programs, sub-brands, and experiences.
Buy-in and implementation
