Phillip Horn and Donna Abrams approached us late in 2005 to discuss their exciting boutique winery venture in Bannockburn, Central Otago. At that stage in the game they were pretty much starting from scratch with their brand, the only thing they had was a vineyard full of grapes ready for the first vintage, the name, and subsequently a domain name already purchased. This was a great start, and really one of the most critical aspects to any brand development these days. Securing a domain name that complements your brand is vital, as it seems to be almost a crime to contemplate doing business without a website.

After meeting and deciding that we were a fit for each other, they commissioned us to begin a comprehensive brand development. After a lengthy period of research into their company, their intended market position and existing competition, we then took a good look at market leaders and successful international wineries to make sure that what we produced would have the capabilities to stand up to the competitive nature of performing internationally.
We designed a logo, market tested it with a test group and analysed it's performance internationally with a translation service just to make sure we weren't exposing them to any bizarre translation situations. (see an article here about the necessity for doing this with examples of some major issues companies have faced as they enter non english speaking markets).

The brand we created was then applied to a range of marketing material, including letterheads, business cards and promotional brochures. Part of the key brief to this project was to produce a label that could be applied across the range of wines that they produced. This brand and label had to convey their upper echelon price point of their wines. It had to convey instantly to the potential customer that this wine was traditionally handmade, and of the uptmost quality. A consideration through all of this was to keep the cost of printing in check, as they were only producing relatively small volumes each vintage.

To reinforce the brand, and enable it to perform internationally with support, we also built a comprehensive website complete with a secure shopping cart.The website features photography that we did onsite one summer - you know you have to love a trip to Lake Wanaka in the middle of summer!

You can check out the website here: www.kingsmillwines.co.nz