The Brief

Brandmanager was approached by a successful fashion business in Europe. They wanted to develop a children’s clothing brand, for boys and girls aged 2 to 8. The clothing was to be designed in Australia and manufactured in China.

Our brief was to develop an iconic Australian brand that would be positioned to the mid to upper market. We had six months to develop and launch the new children's wear label.

For the research we went to Fashion Exposed, the premier, bi-annual fashion expo in Melbourne. Here we interviewed and discussed the industry with existing clothing exhibitors to gain an insiders knowledge of the current Australian market.



The Name and Logo

We next brainstormed the brand – with every name we came up with we needed to check its availability in regards to domain name, trademark and business name. To keep with the iconic ‘Australian’ feel we decided on Kangaroo Creek as the main, umbrella brand.

The two clothing labels that were to be produced by Kangaroo Creek became Sugar Possum for the girls and Blue Dingo for the boys.

Now came the range itself and for this we sourced and hired an experienced Visual Merchandiser. We conducted two Branding Day’s in Sydney to develop the style, theme and unique stories for the summer collection 2010/11. Designs were developed, samples made and swing tags created

The Brand Message 

The message was to be rustic, colonial Australian - a brand identity to compliment the popular surf brands on the market. We booked a stand at Fashion Exposed Sydney for the launch and designed the stand to match the theme.

Next we hired models and chose a venue for our video and photoshoot – a pioneering village in Kalamanda, WA. We then created themed brochures for both labels and made them square and smaller than the standard A4. We also baked some cup cakes, printed bags and added lollipops to add enhance the Expo experience.

Finally we developed a web presence for both brands and created an online E-Store with over 100 products. The video was used as a ‘theme enhancer’ on the website to give a ‘behind the scenes’ look at the photoshoot and 'live' at the Expo.

 
The Results

The Expo was a success with all visitors welcoming the fresh, new look.

The results achieved included:

• Initial sales of $21K over the 3 day Expo

• Agents in Sydney and Melbourne interested

• Positive feedback from Europe/ for a possible launch in January 2011

 
Tell us what you think of this new children's brand – click on the 'comments' link below.