Through the coming blog posts, I will explain some of the thinking that has gone into the redesign of "Stone's Green Ginger Wine"(later referred to as Stone's) brand. The client expressed concern over the fact that most of their yearly sales happen during the 12 weeks of Christmas. They also informed us that the average buyer of Stone's only buys one bottle in a year, and is 65+. This fact is concerning as the regular consumers of the product buy very little and are ageing.
We conducted primary research to gain an understanding about peoples perceptions of the brand and product. Through the focus group(7 people aged 26-56 year old, Dec 18) and online questionnaire(37 participants, Dec 18), we found that the perceptions of the brand and product matched up to the purchase patterns and typical consumer. People had many negative associations with the drink and packaging, many stating that the brand felt old, Christmassy and cheap. Many were also in a state of confusion as to what green ginger wine is and how the drink could be consumed.
When the bottle was given to our focus group attendants, many negative comments were being made about the design of the branding and the bottle. It was described as cheap due to its green tinted bottle, and Christmassy due to its very busy and old themed label. The label has lots of design elements that feel festive, especially the squiggly lines around the outside and the green/gold colour combination.
As a whole, very few of our participants knew about the brand or the product category at all. There is therefore little brand equity amongst people who aren't currently regular purchasers of the product. This could be down to the fact that there has been very little marketing activity in the last years on the product. When researching past activity the last larger scale marketing effort was in the 80s with a TV advertisement.
The current Stone's logo has clear symbolism towards its London heritage. The logo itself has the London dragon crest built into it, but when asking our focus group participants about their knowledge of this connection there was very little knowledge.
Looking at the alcoholic drinks market in the UK, we can see that spirits is the fastest growing category(Statista, 2019). Therefore focusing on aligning the product with the spirits market would see an opportunity to tag along on this growth. Since stones is a drink that is mostly used as a cocktail ingredient it has many similarities with spirits, and is often even mixed with spirits. Looking at a target audience that is interested in cocktails is therefore something to look into.
The conclusion about the current brand and its brand elements is that there is generally lots of confusion and negativity tied to it. People imagine the drink being an old person's drink, which in turn will repel younger people from buying the product. This primary research, therefore, leads us to believe that the brand needs a serious revamp and modernisation to appeal to a larger and somewhat younger target audience.
References:
Statista (2019) Alcoholic drinks. Available at: https://www.statista.com/outlook/10000000/156/alcoholic-drinks/united-kingdom?currency=gbp#market-revenue (Accessed: 14 March 2019)