Wine from Within

Challenge

Australian producer, Accolade Wines, approached DAf to create new packaging designs for their Anakena range, and devise fresh brand strategy, naming, storytelling, and creative for the line. It was important for Accolade Wines that this redesign and creative recognize both the terroir of their wine, which is Alto Cachapoal, in central Chile, and also the origin story of the Easter Island birdman that appears on their label.
Anakena sought to appeal to the millennial market as an exciting option within New World wines. Their goal was to increase global distribution to build the brand in the US, Canada, Latin America, Japan, Korea and China, and relaunch completely in Europe.

Brand Strategy

DAf identified the ideal consumer profile for Anakena as a millennial who seeks out new experiences and excitement, they take pride in their conversation-starting discoveries and like to share their zest for life. Seeing this, we developed a brand purpose, essence and promise for Anakena: the most exciting New World wine that stops at nothing to achieve greatness. A wine so powerful, not even lava can stop it.

Brand Story

We wanted to share the symbiotic relationship that lava has with this wine; the lava escaping from within the earth’s crust, eventually forming the terroir from which Anakena was crafted.

Storytelling

Chile is a land of extremes,
The Pacific island of Rapa Nui,
May seem a distant world to our home in Alto Cachapoal,
Yet we are connected by what’s inside.

Both are lands defined by fire,
Where lava once flowed, irrevocably changing the landscapes bringing depth and richness to our very existence
And its fire spirit lives on beneath the ground we walk on.

CAN YOU FEEL IT FLOW?

Our vines plunge into the depths,
Straining through the volcanic soils,
Harnessing the fiery force of what’s within and infusing our wines with heated spirit.

When you try our wines, go deeper.
Feel what’s inside.
Trace the taste back to the embers of these ancient lands
And soar from there.

Packaging

DAf designed six new wine labels that use a volcanic color palette to tell the story of Anakena’s powerful origin. Different concentrations of hot red, igneous black and bright gold were selected to reference the lava, volcanic soil and precious organic material contained within the earth’s surface. Each bottle is connected by the jagged silhouette of the Andes Mountains which runs along their lower half and also symbolizes Anakena’s mountainous terroir in Alto Cachapoal. For the wines Alwa and Khana, we used bright gold foil to reference Pacific sunrises; for Ona, a wine named for an indigenous people from Tierra del Fuego, rustic stripes of red and gold were used, inspired by the body paint once used by this community; while Tama uses a stone background reminiscent of anthropomorphic, pre-Columbian carvings. For Nuna, which means soul or spirit, we designed a black-to-red gradient with bright red strikes running through it, as if a spirit was running through a night sky like lightning. Lastly, for the range’s hero product, Birdman, we created a layer of fiery red underneath a layer of intriguing, mysterious rongorongo glyphs, ancient icons from Easter Island whose exact meaning is unknown to this day.

Naming

We took into consideration the importance of recognizing the native lands and peoples of Chile, and developed names in accordance with these conventions, opting for short, two-syllable words that are simple to pronounce and convey attributes associated with the wine, using terms for light and community for example.

Key Visual

DAf produced two key visuals, both heavily volcanic in nature. The first features Anakena’s iconic Birdman figure with a tagline inspired by the words of our storytelling: “Wine from Within”. This is set against a backdrop that shows a vineyard and sky in tones of grey, and transitioning into hot, lava red. Emblazoned on the lava, representing fiery magma, is another instance of the birdman figure. The second key visual consists of the magma-colored birdman burning through a surface of pahoehoe lava flow, which is smooth and ropy-looking, and has the same claim as above. Both have at the bottom the creative phrase “Profound Wine Grown From Chile’s Volcanic Soils”.