Rebrand and Packaging System

West Avenue Cider was started in 2012 by highly regarded chef Chris Hayworth and partner Amy Robson. Their goal from the outset was to make the best possible authentic craft cider in Ontario Canada using heritage apples — particularly those varieties typical of the UK’s traditional ciders.

Very quickly West Avenue’s ciders became know throughout North America as being among the best — and have amassed a ridiculous amount of critical awards to support the accolades. As the visibility of the brand increased, Chris and Amy began to realize that the startup brand and package that they had created for themselves might not be able to grow with their success or keep up in broader more competitive markets and retail situations.

Furthermore they felt their start-up package didn’t reflect their deep sense of responsibility to craft and authenticity as well as it wasn’t communicating all that was unique about the product.

And finally to further complicate the whole, West Avenue had purchased and moved to an established apple farm and was planting thousands of heritage apple trees with the goal of creating a full time facility and tasting experience — a real home for the brand.

Consequently Insite was asked to evolve the brand into a more sophisticated presentation — a rebrand that could maintain existing audiences but which would collect the missing ideas behind West Avenue and build this in for the long haul.

Insite assisted by boiling down the core emotional value of the brand and creating a strategy around future steps. The missing concepts of craft, authenticity and sense of place were injected into the brand essence and visual palette and in addition, an identity was created for the farm that could tell a separate but complimentary story to the cider brand — called Somerset Orchards.

With the brand work complete and new identity for West Avenue and Somerset were created along with a communication system for the packaging. New packaging was developed for multiple tiers for West Avenue that would provide clear paths for future releases, the first of which are the 500mL series such as the immensely popular Heritage Dry as well as the critically acclaimed 750mL releases such as Gold Dust.

Much more to come from West Avenue ahead so watch for them in a wide array of local pups and restaurants that care about what they serve as well as retail in the future.