Elmwood

Irish Spring was seen across Northern America as a truly masculine bar soap and body wash brand, but its Irish Spring Body Wash had failed to resonate with its target market – the ‘millennial male’ aged between 18 and 34 – since its launch in 2007. The product needed a redesign that would connect with this key audience and lose its image as ‘my dad’s brand’.

Dan Sims and Ben Edwards are two of Australia’s top wine experts. When they moved from reviewing wine to actually producing it themselves, they wanted to create a product that reflected their passion for making the elitist world of wine accessible, engaging and fun.

In 2011 Goal.com, the football website, had almost 30 million monthly hits, but it lacked credibility amongst supporters who preferred to get their regular dose of football news from national sites such as the BBC and Sky Sports.

In repositioning Goal.com so that it was no longer seen as a website but a complete digital portal, the .com was removed from the name and an instantly recognisable, simple, straight-talking brand symbol,goalposts with a registered trademark in the top corner,was developed.

With no name or brand, the Keeble family had been selling their sausages under the family name when they decided they wanted to take the product to the next level. The sausages spoke for themselves; the challenge was to create a brand that did them justice.

Justifying a place on the shelf in an over-crowded market was the biggest challenge. The passion for food was the drive behind the whole business and this needed to be at the heart of the brand. The maxim ‘What the Heck’ was adopted and Heck was born.

Rampant Rabbit vibrators were invented by Ann Summers, yet consumers weren’t making the connection between the two brands. It was also felt that their existing packaging didn’t accurately reflect each model’s premium price. With numerous poor imitations on the market, the brand wanted to increase sales and improve customer perceptions.

Design consultancy Elmwood upgraded the packaging for each Rabbit, as well as the overall tone of voice, naming conventions and pack copy. A change of logo and design unified the range while clarifying the differences between each model.

With over a century of experience in caring for babies and toddlers, Nutricia has been trusted by generations of mums. However, the brand felt it could do more to care for expectant mums in particular. Insights showed that, during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, mums longed to share their news but didn’t yet feel comfortable telling their family and friends.

As a family-run franchise, Australian based Terry White chemists were struggling against supermarkets with lower cost structures. Terry White needed to distinguish themselves by providing something that was exclusive to all 160 stores, would build trust with customers in an extremely difficult market, and look fresh and simple.

Elmwood were brought in by gin brand Sacred to deliver their aspirations of expansion, but they arrived to find half of the work already done. Microbrewer Ian Hart had created a truly extraordinary gin – the only problem was introducing it into the luxury market.

To inject a bit of charisma into this artisan spirit, Elmwood took to exploring the scenery of Highgate, birthplace of Sacred. With an emblem displaying the village’s cemetery gates, and typography reflecting the biblical undertones of the brand story, Sacred re-entered the spirits circuit with an almighty presence.

A seventh generation Chatham Islander, Delwyn Tuani founded Chatham Island Food Co. in 2011 to share his island’s extraordinary produce with the world, including his elusive export – the Chatham Island Blue Cod.

Elmwood were approached to help create a truly effective brand identity. So they created a compelling tale that built awareness for the place, sheer passion for the produce and new opportunities for the community, through telling the story visually and verbally.

Only 7% of households cook duck at home, and Gressingham Foods was struggling to sell their duck in supermarkets. Against a background of rising production costs and a brutal trading market, it became apparent that the brand and the category needed rethinking.