Brand design success

Silver Fern Farms and partner Designworks Ltd have won the best effect award at the 2012 Best Design Awards.

Organised by the Designers Institute of New Zealand, the awards recognise the country's best brand, product and most innovative design concepts.

The company's entry reflected its four-year project to rebrand and transform PPCS into Silver Fern Farms.

It was about Silver Fern Farms' commitment to shifting its culture from "meat processor" to "marketing and consumer-oriented exporter", chief executive Keith Cooper said.

The company realised that building deep partnerships with specialists like Designworks was critical to success.

Over the past four years, the two parties had worked together to develop a new look for the brand across internal and external corporate communications materials; designing innovative new retail packaging; moving to one consistent brand across all packaging; devising a new strategy for the food-service channel; and adapting packaging and brand communications to enter into new international retail markets.

The company was thrilled to be judged against such a strong field of innovative and well-respected New Zealand brands, he said.

Silver Fern Farms was one of New Zealand's largest exporters in one of the country's's most critical sectors, judging panel convener Noel Brown said.

They had used design to get closer to their end customers and increase the relevance of their product to capture more of the value in the farm to plate value chain, he said.