Established in 1887, The Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki is the leading public gallery in Auckland with the most expansive collection of national and international art in New Zeland. The gallery underwent a three year redevelopment for a new building along with a new identity that told the story of art and represented both Maori and Pakeha cultures of New Zealand.

In order for the gallery to compete with other leisure destinations in New Zealand, they built an identity to communicate in a different ways to their diverse audiences. This meant reaching out to their market in a fun, exciting and friendly way, enticing families with young children and a broader generation and cultural mix, that they are fun, exciting and friendly.

Based on the idea of demystifying art through language and cultures, they developed a text algorithm as a design device, incorporating the words “Art” and “Toi” (Maori translation of art). Using the consistent theme of “ART” they were able to create strong communications with clean typography and unlimited variations. The new identity was applied across the entire organisation from print to digital, on environmental communications, uniforms, products for the gallery’s shop and the launch campaign.

Auckland Art Gallery’s new brand identity along side the new building development was launched in September 2011, and the exhibition space was increased by 50%. The rebrand was a huge success with an increase of 595,008 visitors over the 10 month period after reopening, nearly 300,000 more than they anticipated, a remarkable result in a city with a population of 1.5 million people. The gallery’s shop sales increased, with their branded products amongst the top sellers. Feed back from customers have been overwhelmingly positive.

Longview Vineyard is a family owned and operated winery in the town of Macclesfield in the Adelaide Hills. It has established itself as one of the most awarded vineyards in the region.

Longview has been reinvigorated by the Saturno family who invested into the established winery in 2001. They realised that it was time to give the existing labels which were common and uninspiring a new look, as they thought that their dated packaging could not survive in such a highly competitive industry. Longview decided to redesign their entire range of packaging with the aim of portraying a message of quality and uniqueness and increasing sales amongst their 25-45 year old target audience.

Each distinctly shaped bottle has a unique illustration which draws on the personality and the name of the wine. This is consistent throughout the range, giving them a common appearance yet each one remains distinctive. These illustrations each tell a story behind the wine. This gives the bottles more depth and creates an interest for the consumers, drawing them into the region and allowing them to seek out more information about the brand.

Longview was rewarded for their new packaging as results showed a massive increase in sales. The new labels were engaging and different from their competitors as they stood out. The total sales in 2008-2009 were 9,879 cases domestically across 31 different labels. After the repackaging, domestic sales have increased to 14,787 cases across 17 different labels. They also expanded their exportation to 8 markets, previously 1, increasing international sales to over 6,000 cases. Their new, fresh and vibrant labels enabled them to become a more desired brand.

The first Weis bars were developed by Cyrill Weis in 1936 based on the concept of using natural ingredients, fresh fruits and ice cream. It wasn’t until 1957 that his son Les sold the iconic Fruito bar commercially in Toowoomba Queensland that distribution quickly expanded through the city and interstate making it’s way to becoming a national ice cream brand. Over the decades, the brand has had many packaging designs with the most recent in 2011.

With the ice cream market being extremely competitive, the Weis multipacks needed have enough visual appeal to be highly noticeable and connect to the target consumers and encourage them to try the product. The repositioning of the brand had to also incorporate the values of the brand and convey these messages clearly and concisely. The packaging designs had to be strong and focused on ‘real fruit and real ingredients’ to stand out amongst the cluttered market and promotional activity of other mainstream brands competing in the same space.

The red Weis logo is more dominant and visible on the new packaging design. This creates stronger brand recognition and recall. An abundance of fresh fruit was used as a visual to highlight the natural ingredients as the key selling point. The packaging uses bold colours for each of the corresponding fruits and reflects the intensity of each distinctive fruity flavour. The use of these colours also increases the visibility of the different varieties available on the shelves.

The result of the redesign has been positive for the growth of the brand. Sales have increased by 32% with no advertising support.

Carolyn Crewell, the founder of Carman’s Fine Foods was just an 18 year old university student when she established the business in 1992. She scraped together $1000 to pay for  when her employer placed her small business on the market for sale. Two years later, Crewell bought out her business partner. The first five years was very difficult, she was broke and had enormous responsibilities, often feeling completely overwhelmed.

Twenty years later, Carman’s now exports to over 32 countries (such as Malaysia, Singapore, US) with a philosophy of using food ingredients from the kitchen and enriching lives every day. Carman’s has done so well due to a customer driven brand resonating with it’s people. The company has ignored following the direction of other companies in their market and haven’t been afraid to try different approaches.

Up until 2010 Carman’s packaging lacked real passion and love and came across as cluttered, conservative and cold. Carman’s realised they were not living their values of sharing their love and passion which was stated on their packaging. They under went a redesign keeping elements of the initial packaging, such as the bold black colour backgrounds, and added small changes which made a big difference. Carman’s brought personality, quirky energy and warmth to the brand’s packaging through it’s visual fun illustrations. Each variety has it’s own friendly, yet quirky hand drawn chalkboard illustration that tells an individual story. A tagline was also incorporated to explain the brand’s ethos in a simple and effective way.

With it’s fun, refreshed and rejuvenated look and feel, Carman’s results were quite impressive. Over 20% of Carman’s customers surveyed purchased a Carman’s product entirely based on the aesthetic appeal of the packaging. The successful communication of their key messages was evident by the increase in market shares and distribution and sales increase of 47.1% in Coles and 62.6% in Woolworths.

Carmen’s relaunched without advertising their new packaging. Their only investment in 2010 was towards their brand and packaging redesign.

With 91 aircraft in it’s fleet in early 2010, Virgin Blue’s market shares were suffering and it’s future unsustainable. Virgin Blue needed a major revitalisation if they wanted to compete as a contemporary business in the leisure airline market. This meant moving away from the “no-frills” low-cost image and undergoing a complete repositioning of the brand. Virgin Blue and it’s sub brands were relaunched as Virgin Australia in May 2011.

The objectives were to re-establish the Virgin Airline brand as Australian’s number one airline and increase their business and market share.

Virgin Airlines united and simplified their domestic and international brands into one unified brand, Virgin Australia, so they could communicate through a single voice. They changed their image and colours to appeal to both economy and business class by retaining the initial white and red colours while adding silver for elegance and purple touches for an edgy contemporary look. These colours were then applied to their uniforms, airport lounges and interior of their planes.

Virgin Australia also analysed the customer experience and applied the new branding across all touch points, from the moment the customer checks-in to the airport lounge; boarding the planes, to in-flight services, dining experiences and seating comfort. These points of contact were rebranded to create a new perception of the brand. The crew announcements, choice of the music and onboard lighting during boarding and take off, menus, materials and surfaces were also considered as they revitalised the brand.

The result of their rebrand were made public in February 2012. Passengers were clearly impressed as growth in Virgin Australia’s corporate and government revenues was up 81%, market shares increased, capturing nearly 20% of the business market. In May 2012, they carried 50,000 more domestic passengers compared to Qantas Domestic during the same period and outperformed Qantas for the first time over a 12-month period.

In July 2012, Virgin Australia was awarded with the prestigious 2012 Skytrax World Airline Awards for “Best Airline” and “Best Staff Service” in the Australia Pacific region. One of the key factors to their financial success was the teams ability to embrace and drive the changes and their commitment to the airline.

The Virgin Australia rebrand has shaken up the Australian travel market with their style, innovation, quality, value for money and best service.