Orangewood is the leading eCommerce guitar brand reinventing the way people shop musical instruments. We officially launched in 2018 with one guitar collection and a big idea to create a community for the next generation of musicians. In the 5 years since our launch, we’ve introduced fifty new models, designed six premium guitar collections, and watched our favorite musicians tour worldwide with our guitars. In 2022, it was time for us to embrace our next phase as a brand, and we needed a refreshed brand identity that could evolve with us.
Our objective for our rebrand was to create a new webstore that could fully mirror the “in-store” shopping experience of a music retailer. As we introduce higher price point models, our customers need to inherently trust the quality and professionalism of our products without the opportunity to play the guitars before purchasing.
Our new website had to be interactive and conversion-based, yet simple enough to avoid decision fatigue. Most importantly, our refreshed brand identity had to seamlessly communicate Orangewood’s evolution from a startup boutique to a mainstream guitar brand that can compete with legacy industry leaders. All of this needed to be communicated without losing our playful “new generation” ethos (or isolating our day-one audience).
For a 360 º approach to our rebrand, we targeted three phases as part of the campaign strategy:
Phase 1: Refreshed Design System
Our in-house creative team began by updating our brand identity, featuring a transformed logotype, typeface, brand voice, and color scheme. The creative team focused on bringing more personality to the brand while staying true to Orangewood’s youthful and minimal aesthetics. The result was a polished and mature brand identity that could appeal to Gen-Z and millennials, as well as an older audience with a higher disposable income.
During the design process, we had to consider how the rebrand translated across our webstore to the tangible products. Everything from accessory kits, hardcases, packaging, and headstocks had to be updated. The new logo was going to live front and center on our website – and on every physical guitar. And as any musician knows, a guitar headstock is one of the most iconic and memorable elements of any instrument. When rolling out our campaign launch, we’d need to be extra sensitive with our language so our rebrand wouldn’t devalue our first-generation models.
Phase 2: An ‘In-store’ Experience, Online
As a digitally native brand, our web experience had to mirror the growth and maturity of our new design system. After finalizing our creatives, we started construction on our new website with accessibility and a mobile-first UXUI at the forefront of the redevelopment.
New shopping tools included: simpler navigation, a compare models feature, a personalized quiz, an interactive buyer’s guide, accessibility options, new product photography, and robust filtering options on collection pages (see an example on our Highland Collection landing page here). We also launched our new lifestyle blog, The Tuner. From artist interviews to educational guitar tutorials, the Tuner was designed to be a go-to source for all things acoustic guitar. The Tuner would provide a significant SEO boost for brand visibility, as well as a space for our customers to return to post-purchase.
Phase 3: Campaign Launch
To announce the evolution of Orangewood, we launched an awareness campaign across our communication channels, including email, social, and blog. Our announcement strategy focused on transparency and celebration. Using purposeful language like ‘refresh’ and ‘next chapter’, rather than ‘rebrand’, showcased the growth of Orangewood without isolating customers who’d grown attached to our first-generation logotype and headstock design.
The content team worked closely with the developers and designers to produce communications that gave our audience a behind-the-scenes look into the design process. Our email and social content focused on hyping up our new educational tools to provide a safe, inclusive shopping environment for new players. For engaged fans, we produced a longform Tuner article to walk through the changes, using straightforward terms, so customers could understand the motivation behind the updates and take part in the celebration with us.
The following metrics were calculated after our rebrand campaign launched in February 2022:
Brand Awareness Metrics
Our rebrand announcement email was one of our all-time highest performing campaigns, resulting in a 41.3% Open Rate and a 5.8% CTR. Our email subscription increased by 30% post-rebrand.
The Instagram rebrand announcement resulted in celebratory engagement with comments and shares from our three core audiences: everyday customers, content creators, and professional musicians. It was our third most engaged IGF of 2022 (and the top performing non-giveaway post).
Our TikTok followers grew by 112% and our TikTok content drove over 9M views post-rebrand.
Blog traffic increased by 70% after the Tuner launch. Our first article on the Tuner, Meet the New Orangewood Identity, was the top performing article of the month with the lowest bounce rate.
Coverage in notable design publications, including Brand New & Logos World.
Conversion Metrics
Our biggest win: 16.8% Returning Customer Rate post-rebrand. This is a significant percentage considering the high price point and longevity of our product.
New Quiz tool drove $40,689.5 conversions and 17,761 engagements.
Paid media assets performed significantly better on Meta platforms post-rebrand. Our return on ad spend (ROAS) on Facebook and Instagram increased by 44% compared to the same period in 2021.
