Being asked to take a completely fresh look at a brand and roll out a new look across their packaging, website, and total strategy is a hugely exciting brief for any marketing agency. In 2019 we were lucky enough to be asked just this by Mackie’s of Scotland…
The brief
We met the Mackie’s team prior to the pandemic at the end of 2019 and they already had a very successfully run ice cream business that started in 1986 on a 4th going on 5 generations run family farm in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Mackie’s was the leading brand of ice cream in Scotland and a challenger brand with strong distribution across the UK with the aim of strengthening and growing their brand in this competitive market. Our priority was to enable the brand to attract more shoppers and grow market share.
Making Simple Delicious
To do that, we looked at market data in relation to the premium ice cream category and the competitors and we undertook a programme of quantitative research to understand consumer attitudes with a panel of both Mackie’s shoppers and people who hadn’t bought Mackie’s yet.
From this, we saw that a source of competitive advantage would be to focus on the essence of the Mackie’s story, their 'real dairy’ credentials., and amplify it even further than they had done before to help strengthen their position. The brand is built on strong foundations as a family-owned farm business producing ice cream with a clean fresh taste, made with fresh milk & cream, that makes a great compliment to other desserts such as brownies and fresh fruit. This would appeal to shoppers with an appetite for products with great authenticity, great provenance, and most important of all, great taste.
From this we developed a brand articulation that we summed up as ‘Making Simple Delicious’ built on the guiding beliefs that ‘simple is better’, that ‘real food is really delicious’ because it is ‘made with care, naturally.’ These ideas underpinned all that we did and helped us arrive at an effective and fresh new look for the Mackie’s packaging that remained true to the brand’s identity from the past.
Time to get creative!
We approached the creative challenge by first identifying three essential visual attributes of the brand that consumers recognise and should be retained; we named these our ‘three sacred cows’:
1. The colour blue which denotes freshness and the brand’s dairy credentials
2. The unique shape of the generous 1L tub
3. The Milk Maid and the Dairy Cow that comprises the Mackie’s logo
Working with packaging specialists at design agency COOKCHICK, we delivered design concepts that brought ‘Making Simple Delicious’ to life while remaining recognisably Mackie’s. The bold fresh look was then rolled out across the full flavour range including Mackie’s Traditional, Honeycomb, Raspberry Ripple, Scottish Tablet, Chocolate and the indulgent range of Salted Caramel, Madagascan Vanilla and Chocolate Orange & Honeycomb.
The new brand identity was rolled out across all packaging formats and foodservice touchpoints too. The packaging work was the excellent foundation we needed to then create a new brand look and feel through the website, advertising, brochures, social media, and marketing campaigns.
Onto chocolate!
To complete the brand transformation we then sought to develop the branding for the other key product of Mackie’s: their chocolate bars, also made on their farm in Aberdeenshire in small batches. The farm became the inspiration for the packaging with a design based on a bespoke illustration of the hills of Bennachie , a landmark range of hills visible from the Mackie’s farm, a stunning view of the Aberdeenshire countryside.
Final thoughts
This was a truly exciting and fulfilling project to work on, you can’t beat that swell of pride when you see the new design in the freezers at your local supermarket.
The development for Mackie’s Ice Cream and Chocolate was driven by our ‘brand first’ ethos. At its heart, it was a solution that looked forward to refresh and modernize the packaging, while looking back to Mackie’s roots and brand truths for the core message.
We continue to manage the Mackie’s Marketing program across all channels, as we support them on their journey to grow their brand share. And we were immensely proud to see the fruits of our labours take centre stage when the Mackie’s Ice Cream factory and workers were the stars of a recent episode of BBC 2’s Inside The Factory.
Does your brand need a refresh? Contact us at 01394 366800