Rebrand for growth: Auto Restorations

: Spread from Classic Car enthusiasts magazine, showing ‘page dominance’ achieved by the design of Auto Restorations’ 2010 advertising campaign.

: Front cover of double gatefold.

: First gatefold spread.

This well executed redesign of Christchurch classic car restorations specialists Auto Restorations website redesign is a combined brand makeover and website redesign project that coincided with a change of leadership at the firm which had taken on the founder’s personality over the more than 30 years since he had established the firm. The upgrade to the identity and new website was a way to reflect the transition. This shift was about more than the fresh new website and brand, nonetheless the branding helped smoothly bring about more than change, it represented a revitalization of the firm with Allan Wylie at the helm.

To keep up with changes in the global, regional and domestic Classic Car Restoration markets Auto Restorations needed to evolve their brand identity and upgrade their website from the Web 1.0 version that the new General Manager inherited.

Repositioning the brand in the New Zealand market

Auto Restorations had been victims of their own success in the domestic market, for while they were renowned for their many prestigious ‘First In Class’ wins in the world’s glamour Concours d’Elegance for affluent collectors of the most rare Classic European marques such as Ferrari, Bugatti, Aston Martin and DeLage, the number of owners and number of instances of these pre-war to mid-century European unicorns world-wide is very few.

The New Zealand and Australian classic car enthusiasts fraternity is dominated by U.S. and Australian muscle car owners, their perception of Auto Restorations was that their Concours wins meant they were too expensive or their in-house knowledge and skills were irrelevant to their needs.

The new manager Allan Wylie and his management team, while honouring their distinguished legacy, evolved a marketing strategy to embrace the future of classic car restoration in their corner of the world. By rejuvenating the basic elements of the brand, making it bold, refreshing colour & type, and by sticking to big idea devised in collaboration with Allan on the website redesign of “Keeping all eyes on the product” I achieved the goal of proactively keeping the company relevant and noticed. Added to the marketing mix were several media advertising campaigns that were rolled out over the years which worked in connecting with and acquiring a share of the domestic muscle car audience while retaining their legacy global market of premium collectors.

The initial identity had become a liability that was holding Auto Restorations back from reaching its full potential. Their new brand is an asset that has been and is continuing to work for them. If you think rebranding is a good strategy for your firm contact me here.

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Credits

Client: Auto Restorations
Category: Classic car restorations
Web Design firm / Project management/Content upload: MagentaDot Brands.
Web coding and CMS customisation: Zoomroom Interactive
Disciplines: Brand and identity systems design, Copy writing, photography, icon design, digital illustration, Web design, Web content management