Brand development

Aviate media was appointed to build an identity and to promote Musk Farm, a private residence suitable for a corporate & private retreat, offering tours & garden events in the estate designed by the late Melbourne interior designer Stuart Rattle. The then owners, Cathy and Michael, wished to restore the property to its former glory, and to distinguish its elegance with a brand that carried a sense of authenticity and beauty.  

With a media-heavy legacy, repositioning Musk Farm as a venue for visitors, once again, required sensitivity and conscientiousness in brand delivery. To showcase the enormity and elaborate details of Musk Farm’s overall design, branding and digital presence required a real-world symbiosis. Attracting and capturing the attention of the target audience through activation of key channels and positioning.

Brand identity was developed by Christina Catalani, on distinguishable design principles of Musk Farm’s landscape design and key finishing touches that do remain as traces left by the famed interior design Stuart Rattle. Brand identity rolled through digital and print channels, creating the desired symbiosis for the target audience.

CASE StUDY

Once the brand was developed and delivered consistently across all channels, a needs analysis was conducted and assessed the value of local and social media interest. Facebook suited booking enquiries, while the newly launched Instagram lead attraction and drove a more discovery-based audience toward Musk Farm’s site. The Instagram site grew rapidly to over 500 followers (with figures reaching 2000 organically in 2021) with high digital engagement score of 17.54% (with anything over 9% being high) and a barrage of new digital traffic via search or direct search resulting in over 1,200 visitors clicking through in to the quarter long launch phase of the revived website and new social channel. The consistency in activity leads from social media through to the website saw logged activity of social, heavily reflected in that of searches, click-through rates and direct bookings for accommodation at Musk Farm’s Studio. The project entailed full branding services from photography, branded digital content, website build and launch and printed promotional materials, Instagram channel activation and google search engine optimisation.