Ajinomoto Windsor

Challenge

Windsor Foods is one of North America’s premier frozen food manufacturers, with revenue surpassing half a billion dollars a year. The award-winning brand is responsible for many of the most popular frozen ethnic products on the market today, including Jose Olé, Bernardi, Tai Pei, Ling Ling Asian Kitchen, Golden Tiger, and more. Windsor faced the same issue that many of the great brands we work with encounter, an established logo with strong brand equity, but few directions or guidelines for how to tie together everything else. Without any guidelines, a lack of continuity existed for both internal and external design projects and communication gateways. If our goal was to make the company look attractive enough to buy, it worked. Japan-based Ajinomoto Group saw its North American subsidiary acquire Windsor to increase its global strength in food manufacturing. 

Solution

Through extensive brand research and discovery, and an incredible attention to detail, SG developed a comprehensive 66-page Corporate Guidelines to serve as a roadmap for the various teams responsible for stewarding the Windsor Foods brand. The Corporate Guidelines contain everything a Windsor employee would need to know in relation to the company’s brand identity including: brand hierarchy, tone/voice/brand personality and messaging, logo rules and variants, color palette, typography, appropriate photography, corporate materials (business cards, signage, internal communications, etc.), best practices, media protocol and more.

With a brand identity firmly established, SG undertook a comprehensive redesign and development of their digital identity, taking an outdated website and turning it into a modern, smooth, easy-to-navigate home for everything Windsor Foods. The custom website was built with two main goals in mind: highlight their innovative, high-quality ethnic food offerings, and act as a platform to share the brand’s unwavering commitment to its employees and overall culture. The new website features high impact photography, modern website navigation and architecture, responsive mobile design, and custom videography. Take a look here.

Insights

Through both the branding of Windsor Foods materials, and the rebranding after the acquisition, Sutter Group was able to incorporate culture into the big picture. When you’re dealing with branding for large corporations, the people behind the products have a clear picture of what they want to communicate. What’s interesting is how that corporate identity comes across to people who have never met anyone from that company. That’s why we take our time to think through the details and become ingrained in our client’s corporate culture.