When we won the pitch to re-brand the icon of New Zealand Rugby we knew we had to tread very carefully. The emotional stake held by Kiwi's everywhere in Eden Park is nothing short of phenomenal. The fact that the Rugby World Cup was to be held there twelve months from the time just added to the pressure. But - as they say in the game - 'No pressure'. Right.
The time frame to launch this was set in stone with the grand opening of the stadium leaving us around 8 weeks to:
1. Create a new brand
2. Develop a logo
and the big one…
3. Get agreement with the Board of Directors of the Eden Park Charitable Trust, after the steering committee had agreed and signed off on the ideas.
Then all we had to do was build a new website and extend the brand out to every possible application, touch point, create a brand book and overall guidelines for usable by every single contractor, agency and entity. All pretty straight forward really.
Working with a solid, experienced management team who knew their way around a re-brand meant we were able to meet the deadlines and create a brand that is effective, strong and enduring. The new brand has met with the international approval of the RWC Board allowing Eden Park to display the brand on uniforms and other places throughout the RWC. This is a first as a 'clean stadium' is part of the deal for hosting the RWC.
The website is more of a portal than a stand-alone site offering users information on ticket purchases and eventually will link to other sites and perhaps other events. The traffic through the site increased in its first week by around 300% and has increased week on week since then. With peaks around a game that could crash many servers we were right to put a cloud behind this one.
Developing a brand within a brand for Eden Park Catering (a stand-alone business unit) was an interesting challenge for us. It needed to sit within the Eden Park brand suite yet be different enough to not be part of Eden Park when separated from the ground. We wanted it to be fun, we wanted it to be Kiwi, we wanted those in the stands to enjoy it and identify with it. So we used words more than patterns because there are so many food wrappers out there with brands and patterns on them. We used words synonymous with eating at an 'event' and we told it like it is. The chips say 'chips' and the drinks say 'drink' on the package. They also say things that evoke eating and enjoying food. Yum. We put that in there somewhere too.
