Brand Experience
Luis de Sousa Product Design Year 2 May 2015
Introduction Research - What is Chandon? - Brand DNA - Chandon in Argentina - Sparkling wines in the UK - Retail Environments - UK Lifestyle - Other Brands Development - Fast Prototyping - Questions & Feedback - User Journeys - Direction to Follow - Initial Service Design - Early Refining - Generating a Network - Defining a Shape - Glass Introduction - Making a Box Refining - Packaging Refinement - App Development - Glass Final Product - FInal Concept - How The App Works - Further Development - Conclusion
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Introduction The Brand Experience project focused on how strong branding can be and how it shapes customers’ perspectives towards a brand. It shows how every single aspect is thought and designed in order to achieve to success, which can only be confirmed by the impact it makes on the general public. In this project we were given the brand Chandon, which although it carries a strong historical background, it is relatively new in the UK market, and therefore is looking to gain visibility and become more popular in the near future. Due to its recent introduction in the UK, Chandon is still in the process of affirming itself against other brands and develop its own identity, which made the brief quite broad, therefore providing us with the freedom to focus on different areas, such as packaging, advertising, marketing events, special editions, props or points of sale areas. Being a part of the LVMH house (Louis Vuitton MoÍt Hennessy), Chandon is a premium brand that is currently in the process of placing itself as a bridge between the luxury and the premium, yet affordable market, and our work was to create branding solutions through a design process.
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Research - What is Chandon? - Brand DNA - Chandon in Argentina - Sparkling wines in the UK - Retail Environments - UK Lifestyle - Other Brands
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What is Chandon? Chandon started in Argentina in 1959 when the MoÍt & Chandon house saw the potential of the Mendoza region to produce sparkling wine outside of France. In 1973 the house expanded the brand to California and Brazil, and later Australia in 1986. The brand keeps expanding in new territories and developed a winery in India in 2013 and in China in 2014. Their next goal is to take the brand globally, starting with UK as the pilot territory. The consumer target is the current prosecco drinker, and despite being more expensive than average prosecco’s (£14,99 a bottle), it hopes to attract consumers with its quality and tradition.
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Brand DNA Chandon positions itself in the market as: - Super Premium - Prestige - Luxury (yet more affordable than champagne) - Desirability The product is offered in two wines: the Brut and the Rosé. The prices are £14,99 (a bottle) in supermarkets, £38/£40 (a bottle) in restaurants and £7/£8 (a glass) in bars. The Brand DNA is focused on a young and vibrant lifestyle, people in their 30’s, that are still young but can afford a certain amount of luxury goods. It aims to be the reference drink for smaller and unexpected celebrations or moments. Despite its fresh audience, the brand is very proud of its French heritage, but also its Argentinian origin, therefore showing its maturity as a brand.
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Chandon in Argentina After looking at the brands profile and how it wants to be perceived by the general public, I looked at what Chandon effectively is in the countries where it is represented. The American branch was the one where it was easier to find more information, especially in terms of social media, however it does not seem to promote the Chandon’s values and aims and the same happened with the little information existing about the Brazilian branch. However, the Argentinian branch seemed more sophisticated than any other, thus confirming how the brand wishes be perceived in the UK. In all the cases social media helped a lot, as it usually provides a real insight on the consumers and their lifestyle.
Chandon is focused on small moments, light celebrations, a special moment with someone. “Para Chandon hay que saber celebrar porque siempre hay raziones.”* *With Chandon you need to know how to celebrate because there are always reasons.
Chandon is the sparkling wine reference in Argentina. According to an Argentinian friend, people generally have a bottle of Chandon in the house, for any occasion. She enjoys it so much that she knew it was already available in the UK and usually bought through the Majestic Wines’ website.
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Sparkling wines in the UK “Italian sparkling wine exports to the UK leap by 40% in 2013, as prosecco replaces champagne as our celebration drink of choice.” Daily Mail - 15/4/2014
“Prosecco outsells champagne in the UK, and not just because it’s cheaper. Some of it is good, it deserves to be treated with respect .” The Guardian - 21/7/2014 “Britain will become the world’s biggest importer of sparkling in the next five years.” Sky News - 2013
Persona’s board (names have been altered) 9
After researching online, I started talking with people around me that I knew were sparkling wine drinkers. I asked several questions in order to understand when and why they drink it. While some drink it only on rare occasions, others drink it more often than any other wines, due to its particular sweet taste, especially amongst the female audience. The reasons seemed to be very similar to the ones found before: special dinners, parties, etc. Based on that information, I created a persona board to define my focus group during the project and which gave me feedback throughout the development of my project.
“If Chandon gains the proper visibility in the UK, IT WILL KILL PROSECCO.” Vivian - Feb 2015
Retail Environments Another aspect of my research was to look at retail environments and see how they can influence a product’s success or failure. I started with airports, where brands have a lot of freedom to make their own advertisement and get consumers’ attention.
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Airport
The next step was supermarkets where the situation is quite the opposite. In this case, brands are forced to expose their products in limited spaces following strict display guidelines, set by the reseller.
Supermarket 11
Finally I looked at online retail, where I could find a mix of the previews two situations. On one side there is an immense freedom of layouts and services as long as it is the brand’s own website. On the other side, if the products are being sold under a third-party website, it is subject to rigid guidelines, similar to the ones found in supermarkets.
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Online
By looking at retail environments and developing their user-journeys, I was able to determine what the touchpoints were and define the moment where action needs to be taken in order to consumers’ attention in the different spaces.
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UK Lifestyle During my research about Chandon in the various countries, Argentina seemed to be the place where the brand best applied its DNA in terms of target audience and lifestyle. However for Britain the same pattern could not be applied, not only due to cultural differences, but also due to the physical and atmospheric differences (ex: the weather). The lifestyle needed to focus on things people can relate to in the UK, things that make this country as the reference and the model to follow by its own citizens and other nations as well. In that sense I based the lifestyle in traditional British characteristics/activities such as: - Tennis - Picnic’s - Hunting - Green landscapes, lakes - Rainy days, fireplace, cosy - Gentleman VS Young Alternative - “Posh�
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On the right figures a potential example of the brand’s DNA, “Tradition meets new” with MarieAntoinette using a MacBook, or any other words, 18th century meets 21st.
Below there are two images of lifestyle picnics, and then a third of a real one. The reality will never be as charming as the previous images, however if people are willing to try it, it means it worked and in this case we can see a bottle of Veuve Clicquot in the middle.
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Other Brands The final part of my initial research was based on brands that succeed to create an image and have make their own loyal customers in a relatively short amount of time. These brands became references in their sectors thanks to a strong branding strategy behind them.
Sexy is brand of Portuguese wines that appeared in 2007 and by the end of the same year everyone knew what the brand was. This success was due to the bold name and labelling that made the bottles standout in supermarket shelves.
Absolut became the most famous vodka in the world in the early 2000’s with aggressive advertising and different bottles. Its ability to identify with every situation or mood created an intimate connection with its audience.
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Fauchon is a French luxury brand that, despite its old age, still maintains itself contemporary and attractive to younger generations thanks to its bold styling and services online.
IKEA became the furniture reference, not only due to its affordable prices, but how it adjusts to every person’s preference. The decorations showed in catalogues show small spaces and lifestyles people could relate to.
When Vitamin Water was introduced in Europe, it was massively advertised, selling a lifestyle of how there was a water for every different situation people could go through the day.
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Development - Fast Prototyping - Questions & Feedback - User Journeys - Direction to Follow - Initial Service Design - Early Refining - Generating a Network - Defining a Shape - Glass Introduction - Making a Box
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Fast Prototyping With my initial research completed, I started working on fast prototypes. These were simple boxes developed in paper, from quick sketches demonstrating several ideas. The objective was to have quite a few to take to my focus group and have them judging them accordingly.
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The first box had a hole in the middle, that would allow the consumer to peek inside it and maybe see a little of Chandon’s history, or have a little personalised message written by the person who offered the bottle.
This is a seven-sided box, instead of the traditional four. Each side has a letter so that when seven boxes are assembled together they can generate the word Chandon. This would allow creating a pattern on a supermarket shelf and be easily recognised by customers.
The round box also has a different shape than the conventional. Similar to whisky box, it is round, however it has a little stripe to pull that reveals a large image of Mendoza region, and tells the story of the brand, along with its methods to produce wine. 21
Although it looks like a regular box, this piece transforms itself in a carrying bag, making it the ideal wine for any unplanned moment or occasion, regardless of whether it is a dinner party or a picnic in the park.
This box was developed based on the mountains of Mendoza region, therefore its top is curvy and irregular, made out of the image of the mountains top.
The last prototype was in a traditional box shape, however it had an image of Mendoza spread through each side. Once in a shelf, four boxes together would generate a large image, making it standing for other products around it.
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Questions & Feedback When I showed the box to the group, the feedback was overall positive, although opinions were divided amongst the many models. The most popular one ended up being box number six (the one with the image pattern), due to its strong imagery and ability to work on its own, or in a group of four. After viewing and understanding how they could work, I gave the group a feedback sheet with the following questions: - How often do you drink sparkling wine? - Is there any specific moment when you drink it? - What type of wine do you like the most? Why? - Which characteristics make choose a wine you never tried before in a supermarket? - Which of these packages is more valuable to you? Why? - Which company would you expect to make them? Why? - What other type of thing would you expect for that company?
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User Journeys With the feedback in hands, I started working on user journeys based on the most popular boxes to infer see what it could look like for each of those users.
Lisa is going to meet her sister later and is looking for a bottle of sparkling wine.
She sees a round bottle that says “pull-here�, which makes her curious.
She grabs the box and pulls the image
The information present makes her realise the amount of detail put in the product.
She likes it so much she decides to take it.
Later on she drinks the wine with her. Something this special is to be shared with someone we care. 24
Connor wants to have a relaxing evening and decides to buy a sparkling wine bottle as a treat.
When noticing a box with a peculiar shape and large fonts, he gets attracted and grabs it.
After reading about the wine’s quality and origin, he decides to buy it.
Later on, he sits in front of the fireplace listening to some music and drinking a glass of Chandon.
Anne is meeting the girls later, she loves prosecco but when she sees the boxes of Chandon she gets interested.
The beautiful design of the box, the way it is presented makes it ideal to impress at the party!
She buys three bottles straight away.
Later on, the bottles make a huge success and everyone wants to try the wine.
Susan recently graduated. She just got her first job and is looking to celebrate.
She wants to surprise her mom, so when she sees a bottle that allows to write your own message she loves it.
She buys it and writes down “I got the job!�
She gets home and offers the bottle to her mom. She looks at the hole, reads the message and is happy.
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Direction to Follow The feedback and the user journeys allowed me to gain a better understanding of what type of products and interactions could get the attention from someone, in spaces space so full of competition, as supermarkets. It made me realise that I needed to play with strong imagery based on high-end aesthetics, but also provide an experience that no other product on the shelf could.
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Initial Service Design Since the beginning of the project I was looking for ways to incorporate technology and social media on the product, especially because of the brand’s focus and investment on #UNPLAN. The recent use of augmented reality on smartphones for advertising has proven to be a success, which made me question how I could integrate it in this project. In this case, technology would be used not only for advertising, but also to generate a network of Chandon drinkers that could share special occasions with their friends thanks to social media, while raising awareness. With the box and the phone, the consumer would have an interactive and physical experience unequalled by any other competitor brand, thus completing a cyclic experience.
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Early refining When I started developing a design I wondered about the product’s origins and production, which led me to further develop the image started in the fast prototype from the vineyards and the mountains. I started working on possibilities to use to brand’s colour palette to represent the mountains. With the use of augmented reality, my plan was to assign a mountain and a colour to each part of the app (the latter would be broken in Provenance, Target, Moment and Memories) according to the role they would play in the experience’s lifecycle. The user would then scan a part of the mountain and the correspondent information would appear (right page, image below).
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Example of augmented reality, Drive the TLX app
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Generating a network As the process was evolving, one of the issues that was pointed in one of the tutorials was that the imagery was too focused on Chandon’s history and location, and discarding some other important values of the brand’s DNA. Indeed many key things were missing, such as the vibrancy and younger targeted audience, but most of all the fact that it was not reflecting the global dimension that Chandon wishes to reach and the spirit of the network generated by my technological and social media component, where the borders are non-existent and people are allowed to move freely with almost no limitations. It encouraged me to develop something with a modern feel, something that would make people connect with. I looked at different successful info graphics and started drawing distinct small diagrams as networks, in order to understand how different points could connect with one another.
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Defining a shape
When researching for an aesthetic mode of representation, one the issues I was facing was that some shapes risked to be too literal or too conceptual in the network’s representation, what could be in turn misunderstood by the enduser. In the effort to hopefully simplify the process, I started drawing based on the aspects of the app, and how the “dots� could link to each other, while obtaining an aesthetically familiar form. The result was a diamond shape net that not only addressed the issues raised previously, but also alluded to a luxury market where Chandon wishes to be placed.
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Glass Introduction As the shape was evolving, it expressed a strong physicality almost as if it was a threedimension shape, which led to the development of a glass that would complement the physical side of the experience along with the box, thus balancing the strong “interactive“ aspect of the product. Due to the growing demand of sparkling wine, some brands are starting to develop sparkling wines flutes, such as Villeroy & Bosch’s Purisma model (second flute below). On the other side, there is an opportunity for brands to develop their own glasses and succeed at it, as we can see with Nespresso and their espresso cups, which are recognisable by anyone.
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Making a box As I was inserting a foot on the diamond shape in order to develop a glass, there was a clear resemblance with a tree, which is on its own a form of network. Just like genealogical tree, the shape and the app could tell the story of the brand in tandem, dividing in branches each of the brand’s pillars. Each branch would be connected to each other and connected to the main trunk. From this concept came the idea of presenting the initial prototypes with a vertical line coming from the bottom of the box, connecting to shape.
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Refining - Packaging Refinement - App Development - Glass
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Packaging Refinement The package development went through several phases. I was at the moment where I was able to reflect the brand’s DNA which included concepts such as youth and vibrancy, along with the high-end feeling it aim to provide. I tested different detailing techniques in order to refine the product, such as spot varnishing on the composition and different types of paper that could also bring a feeling from the craft side of the brand. An additional problem was highlighted in the mid-review: the risk of exposing too much of the experience in the box and thus reducing the surprise effect from the app. As I was developing the glass based on the diamond shaped structure, I started thinking of the reflection made by light and how that could be reflected in the box. I then tried to extend the lines in the original shape, similarly to the reflexion of light and tested how it could look on the box. The result brought more coherency and completeness to the box, as it then felt like a product that could attract people of different ages, not just a specific generation.
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The development process of the box generated the name Luminance for the project, based on the luminous intensity of light pointing to an area.
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App Originally the idea for the app was to only “move� along the main lines of the shape, and the user would interact with it by dragging a star (in reference to Chandon’s logo) around the paths offered. With the change of the box, however, the app was changed to reflect the new layout and interact with the whole box instead. In this new version the user is guided while scanning the box with the phone, and the colours change as he drags the dots on the shape. It makes it friendlier to use and enhances the surprise element of the interaction.
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Glass During the development of the glass, I started by using the original diamond and exported it to 3D, then created a mesh and extruded the faces, letting the process go naturally and almost randomly. The result was not reflecting the diamond shape as expected, so I developed a shape manually. After testing several forms in paper, I started making a plastic mould that was used to develop a plaster model, and later a resin model. While making the glass and testing different sizes, it made me realise that not only the glass was more attractive without a foot, but it made the feeling of holding a diamond even more real.
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Final Product - FInal Concept - How The App Works - Further Development - Conclusion
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FInal Concept For the product three boxes were produced: Brut, RosÊ and Luminance. This last version could be used in a Reserve Brut or a special edition. Due to the different aesthetics from conventional wine boxes, they can attract people’s attention easily; once approaching people can see the message to scan the QR Code which will take them directly to the App Store and download the Chandon App. The glass can be sold separately and be used in bars and marketing events, which will make people associate it to Chandon, becoming a recognisable asset in any space.
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How The App Works After opening the app, users are prompted to point at the box, where diamond shape is highlighted in the Chandon’s colours. They then approach the phone and the scanned areas change their colour as seen in the images below.
In the first section, we can see Chandon’s provenance, by looking at the brand’s history, Mendoza’s characteristics and the production method.
Then we can see the company’s aim, by reading its manifest, having an insight of their world and create an event/party.
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In the moment section, we can share a message to a friend or a group, see all current events and share #unplan content on social media.
Finally in the memories section, we can read our received sections, remember all our past events and see all #unplan moments shared by other people.
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Further Development One of the areas that was not approached in my project but that is nevertheless very important is the development of a label that reflects the product. This would have been my next step in this project. Below is a series of initial propositions that, if fully developed could have result in a good complement for the final concept. Another part that I would like to have developed further are the boxes for Brut and Rosé. In order to give them a more complete and rich finishing, I could perhaps change the white colour to black, thus making them more “real” and less “conceptual”, perhaps more similar to the Luminance version, since this latter was considered to be more attractive by the Chandon’s marketing team during the final presentation. Finally I would like to have extended the project to advertising and see how the imagery created could work in public spaces and out on the streets. There would be several possibilities, from simple billboards, to more interactive mechanisms. In this second case, people pass by the panel and scan it with their phone to see if there were any events or messages unread.
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Conclusion The Live Project - Brand Experience project was completely different than any other project I had this year. Despite its open brief, it made me acknowledge many different areas, such as background, target, competition and cost. As the name says, it felt like a real life project not only due to having a real customer, but also by working with regular constraints a designer is usually faced when developing a product. The fact that it was delayed from the initial four weeks made it even more interesting as it provided the time to perform an in-depth research, which made me very happy to see it being recognised by Chandon’s marketing representatives on the presentation day. It also made me aware of how design can permeate all the areas involved in the branding process, heavily influencing most relevant process, form research, to production, selling or advertising. Another interesting part was developing a product that was both physical and interactive, while strongly relying on technology, when the real end product that it tries to sell is something so simple as a bottle of wine. It made me think of all the artefacts involved in the production of a bottle of wine, that are not technological or do not even need to be connected or charged like our everyday gadgets. The challenge here was to link something so simple as the act of drinking wine to wider interfaces of the social media. Therefore, this whole process made me focus more on design the experience rather than focusing on a physical forms or user interfaces only. The fact that it was extended also encouraged me to keep questioning my achievements and keep going back, changing and refining further and further, with all the happiness and frustration associated with the process. I can clearly say that it was probably the most demanding project of the year, but also my favourite due to all the different areas I was able to approach and think about. Although it is now over, I still look at my project and detect improvements that I could make in each area. For the first time I made a project where I had to think about the lifecycle of the experience which gave me a certain sense of completion, but I would still like to refine it in some specific areas, directly connected to recycling, sustainability or storage. I believe these are concerns every designer inevitably faces after finishing a project she really believes in: the urge to always make it better.
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