Case Studies: Keeping a jewelry company’s distinctive voice

Agency: Axiom
Client: Buchroeder’s Jewelers

Challenge: Reinventing a successful 112-year-old business while maintaining the equity built with a long time branding campaign.

Background: When we began working with Buchroeder’s, they were at the tail end of a very successful branding campaign using the owner’s distinctive Southern drawl in radio commercials. Though it had been successful in building equity for them as the pre-eminent jeweler in the region, after 10 years the campaign had grown tired. With the son taking over the business from the father, our charge was to create something fresh and new, while maintaining the equity they had already built.

Radio: We redesigned their radio campaign around the fact that Buchroeder’s has the largest variety of diamonds in every price range with the slogan, “every woman deserves the little, blue box.” We chose an iconic national voice with a southern accent as the voice talent in order to retain continuity with the previous campaign while moving it to the next level.

Print: We used print to showcase product and brand the value of “the little, blue box.”

In Store: To take advantage of the store’s location between two successful nightclubs and the traffic on Broadway, we borrowed an idea from a very successful retailer in Europe and put a plasma screen TV in their front window to show branding videos.

Events: To kick-off the campaign we held an invitation-only “lifestyle” event right before the holiday season. In an old warehouse, with concert lights above jewelry cases, BMW’s, an eclectic mix of delicacies like kangaroo and Kobe beef, rare wines and desserts, music, art and street dancers, people mingled, tried on beautiful jewelry and had a great time. We produced a video of the event to use virally. View it at www.getaxiom.com.

Results: In what many like to term a “down economy,” Buchroeder’s had its biggest year in company history in 2007 and is on track to beat that in 2008.