Blog 1 : Background analysis and identification of problems

Welcome to my blog , 

These blogs are going to tell you about the rebranding process of the Stone’s original ginger wine. For the first blog, I am going to bring you into the Stone’s original background and which problems can be addressed.    

Who are ‘you’?      Who needs to know ‘you’?

Background : 

The original Stone’s green ginger wine was first established at London’s Finsbury Distillery in 1740 by Joseph Stone with having over 250 Years of history. Thus,  It also is one of the brand accolade wine (Stonesoriginal.com.au.,2019). The Stone’s are mainly bought in Australia and the United Kingdom under a logo which is displayed two dragons with wings and Latin motto as the meaning of ‘Lord-us’. Although Stone’s is a historic brand that is predominantly famous as the winter warmer with whiskey Mac at Christmas, customers who drink Stone’s with Whiskey Mac are getting older. Therefore, Stone’s is trying to focus on a younger generation. 

“ Warming ginger wine is made from a secret recipe with the best quality selected raisin and grounded pure ginger root.” 

Challenges : 

“It is the right time of Stone’s ginger wine to attract a younger generation ! ”

Figure 1 : Stone’s green ginger label  

Figure 2 : Stone’s green ginger wine

As a part of a conducted survey from the strategic brand management module, I aimed to do the focus group as fellow students of Kingston University. There are only one of 13 students age between 18-24 years-old and 25-34 years-olds has heard about Stone. Plus, most of them have never tasted ginger flavour wine before. However, after doing a blind test,  the result exposed that Although they had the negative allocations with the Stone’s ginger flavour as too sweet and its design of the package as too green, they remained have a positive associations with the Stone’s logo , as can be seen on figure1.  The associations of the Stone’s logo relate with  the top four ranked of words from conducting the survey which can be associated with its Logo such as Powerful , Prosperity, Energetic and Success.

Overall, many participate thought that for the brand elements of the stone’s green ginger wine remained lack of a proper communicating with a younger generation. For example, its package as can be seen from figure 2 with a dark green big glass bottle hardly attracts a younger generation. Another participates also commented that Stone’s should add more flavour instead of only ginger flavour that is very old flavour and should change the logo become more trendy to be more attractive and distinguish over competitors when it comes to seeing at first glance. Consequently, I decided to create the design of its logo to become more trendy but I will maintain the symbolic which is two dragons with winks and Latin motto. In the same time, I will also change the package to become more modern to fit with a younger generation. To conclude, the design of Stone’ s brand has associated between its brand image and customers perceptions should be improved. 

References

Stonesoriginal.com.au. (2019). Stone’s Original :: Over 250 Years of History. Available at: https://stonesoriginal.com.au/heritage (Accessed 28 Feb. 2019).

Blog 2 :  Identifications of desired identity 

Hello , thank you for keeping forward my further post. After I identified the Stone’s positioning problem as reported by block post 1,  this step is going to focus on creating the new identity for a younger generation. Creating the new identity for its brand which plays a vital role for the rebranding , can improve the Stone’s becomes a more noticeable brand and a stronger reputation brand to beat over competitors

How do you need to deliver to ‘your customers’ ?

According to my evaluation of the survey in the block post one, it indicates that the first association word ranked of Stone’s is powerful. Thereupon, Stone’s should not only consistently deliver creative visualisation of its brand but also the affirmation of its brand as well. As a result, Stone’s logo and packaging should be created at first to manifest the Stone’s as a new brand that is younger and more trendy than its original brand. 

As our rebranding exercises, we played in my design thinking class. For the LEGO serious play our primary research with Stone’s green ginger wine in figure 1 and 2. It can be associated with: Versatile is the highest one which the left hand hold the kitchen equipment. This can represent that Stone’s as a long historical brand does not only can be used as pure drink and mixer, it also can be used as an ingredient of some recipes. : Socialisation is 3 people who are sharing their story. : Out-door and in-door activities, wherever you are, you can drink Stone’s every time when it comes to party or events that need to gather a lot of people such as BBQ time, Christmas Eve and so forth. 

For the Stone’s green ginger wine rebranding poster (figure 3), it also indicated that Stone’s should relate to Versatile as multifunction including mixer drinking and cooking, Authentic, Warmth which is as a warm ginger wine and a warm friendship like the home with green shirt did on the poster. 

Through the primary research which is LEGO serious play and poster in branding design class and secondary research which is conducting the survey from the focus group. For the further process, it is about creating the Stone’s original green ginger wine to fit with the younger generation. Thereupon, it needs to be the ‘touchable thing’ which means whenever they also can drink the Stone, not only winter as winter warmer and ‘Catchy’ as the Stone’s package with dark green glass that looks like medicine rather than wine. So Stone should change the package colour become more catchy and more memorable. 

As Stone’s positioning was warmth and outdoor activities, thus, according to the survey, Stone is an unnoticeable and unattractive brand for the younger target audiences. As reported by S-O’Brien et al. ( 2011), millennials who aged between 18 and 34 years old, are likely to connect each other and share their experiences to make social tie stronger. Moreover, Millennials are quite protective of who they are their friends. Therefore, I blended the stone current positioning and the desired positioning under the new concept of Stone which is Intimate, Socialise, Memorable and Warmth

As a result, I will create the new Stone logo under the concept of intimate, socialise, memorable and warmth for my further blog. 

Reference

S-O’Brien, L., Read, P., Woolcott, J. and Shah, C. (2011) ‘Understanding privacy behaviors of millennials within social networking sites’ Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 48(1), pp.1-10.

Block 3 : Explanation of design choice

Hello, everyone! 

Thank you for keeping forward my further post, this blog is about my explanation of design choice. 

“ The Stone’s concept of Intimate, Socialise, Memorable and  Warmth.”

Through the creative process of the Stone new logo, I would like to start from changing the association and the identity of its brand that can deliver the Stone itself. 

First,  As it can be seen in figure 1, Stone’s has used the symbol of the city of London as its logo. Thus, Dragon is well-known and represent as the symbol of the city of London as stated by Gent (2019).  Plus, the Dragon would be seen as fire-breathing with legs. Consequently, the fire-breathing dragon can represent hot and warm. Similarly to the Stone’s original green ‘Ginger’ wine also can give a sense of warmth. 

Moreover, the Stones has the first alphabet as “ S”, and the letter “S” share is the fittest with a curve line with a thin line, as it can be seen on figure 2.  As reported by artyfactory.com(2019), using the curve line with the thin line can give the sense of relaxation, simplicity,  softness and strength at the same time.  

At my, some sketches can provide me with more alternative for the Stone new logo as can be seen in figure 3 and figure 4. The dragon which is a symbol of the Stone as a pretty snake-like. The dragon is the fittest with the letter “S”. Therefore, I decided to use “ Dragon” as the icon of the Stone make with the first alphabet letter shape as it can be seen on figure5. 

It can be noticed that The Stone’s original green ginger wine use 3 different colours as its logo which are green, gold and white. However, these colour remain not fit with the younger generation. As a result, I decided to change the colours become more youthful by making them with lighter shades but still 3 colour of its logo as can be seen in Figure 5. 

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Then after finishing Stone new logo, I found that the word ‘ Green” did not associate with its logo as the fire-breathing dragon and warming and hot spicy ginger flavour. As a result, I decided to cut the word of ‘ Green’ out then it becomes as  “ Stone’s Original Ginger wine.” 

For the Stone’s font, I decided to use “Yellowtail” font in part of “ ORIGINAL GINGER WINE” as can be seen in figure 8. Using “ Yellowtail” font deliver the sense of playful but remain the balancing of modern and classy feeling as stated by Learn (2019)

Reference 

Artyfactory.com. (2019). The Visual Elements of Art. Available at: http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/visual-elements/visual-elements.html (Accessed 5 Mar. 2019).

Gent, T. (2019). Dragons and Maidens – Symbols & Secrets. Symbolsandsecrets.london. Available at: http://symbolsandsecrets.london/2017/10/05/dragons-and-maidens/ (Accessed 15 Mar. 2019).

Learn. (2019). The Ultimate Guide to Font Pairing – Learn. Available at: https://www.canva.com/learn/the-ultimate-guide-to-font-pairing/ (Accessed 16 Mar. 2019).

Block 4 : Present the final design and explain the rationale for your design choice

Hello everybody!

Thank you for looking forward my re-branding process, I will show my final decision of changing the new Stone’s logo. 

Logo 

Firstly, as I explained in blog 3, I combined between ‘Dragon’ that the symbol of the city of London and the first letter of the Stone which is ‘ S’ as the new Stone logo. Moreover, I decided to use ‘ yellow’ as a core colour and also use orange colour  because they can give the sense of hot spicy as ginger flavour and the feeling of playful, fresh, modern and classy, as can be seen on figure 1.  

As can be noticed that I cut ‘ Green ’ on the Stone’s Original  Green Ginger Wine because I have thought that it has not related to its product that is spicy ginger. 

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Package 

After having radical change on the logo, a package also can play vital to make all element more consistent. Therefore, I decided to change the shape and colour of the wine bottle. According to secondary research that is unsuitable using green bottle wine, I changed the colour by using black with yellow colour at the bottom with yellow colour on the bottleneck as can be seen on figure 3 as can be a double meaning of ‘ hot spicy of ginger flavour’ for the new brand association. 

Imagery 

Through the Stone’s concepts, I created slogan which is ‘Never Be Alone’  for the Stone because I want to make the Stone can be drunk in any time, no matter where you are or who are you with, the Stone can fulfil you and your friends become closer. Moreover, I created the Stone imageries to associate with Stone’s concepts and slogan as can be seen in Figure 4 and 5.  These imageries can give me a sense of playful that come from sharing friendship with best friends to warm our heart, thus, also maintain the great feeling of classy modern and outdoorsy. 

“ There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met.”

Jim Henson

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Media usage 

I decided to use social media platform including Facebook and IG which are used the most among the younger generation, when it comes to updating the Stone product, as can be seen in 6 and 7. 

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Poster

“Stone’s Original never let you be Alone” 

As I mentioned above, the Stone’s slogan of “ Never Be Alone”, thus, the imagery of Stone can describe the double meaning of the warm and rememberable friendship relationship. Therefore, I chose pictures as the new Stone poster as can be seen ( see the images below)

Plus, the Stone might provide the way how to drink the Stone by presenting  as the mixer ( see the image below) 

For further advertising strategy, as the younger target audiences who are playful, approachable and outdoorsy therefore the Stone should sponsor the live music festival or live concert ( see the image below).

Reference

Goodreads.com. (2019). A quote from Favorite Songs from Jim Henson’s Muppets.Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/25310-there-s-not-a-word-yet-for-old-friends-who-ve-just (Accessed 17 Mar. 2019).