Thresher Group is relaunching its premium wine retail brand, Wine Rack, with a Lumsden Design Partnership-designed identity. The updated brand is set to roll out to more than 200 stores across the UK.
From June, ten stores in London and the South East will be the first to showcase the redesigned identity. Further development of the branding is dependent on the results of this pilot scheme, according to a Thresher Group spokeswoman.
Creative concepts for the design remain under wraps, but the brand, which was first launched in 1989, will be ‘significantly different to the old stores’, says the spokeswoman.
According to LDP managing director Callum Lumsden, the work aims to position Wine Rack as an authoritative, but accessible brand. ‘[Presently] the brand is wallowing a bit; it doesn’t have a clear brand [message]. We want to give it back its authority in the marketplace without being snobbish,’ he explains.
The company had considered abandoning the Wine Rack brand altogether, planning to incorporate it within its new stores format The Local. But it has now decided to revamp and reposition the stores as a ‘specialist, upmarket’ wine brand.
Lumsden says the consultancy’s work includes in-store graphics, but interiors are outside the scope of the project and will not be updated.
LDP was appointed in December 2004 without a pitch, on the basis of its previous work for the wine retailer.
Thresher Group is owned by First Quench Retailing and operates 2000 stores. Its Wine Rack, Victoria Wine, Bottoms Up, Haddows, Huttons and Drinks Cabin brands will be consolidated under its The Local format.
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