Credits
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Ngā Kaimahi / Team Members
Christy Peacock, Katie Peacock, Christine Gannon, Jane Harding, Sally Lovegrove, Tash Johnson, Tania Jeram, Christian Hewitt, Kate Allan, Vanessa Saporito, Anna Forsyth, Saxon White, Juliette Davies, Michelle Nguyen, Daniel Bracken, Jo Feeney, Libby Collison, Lucy Caskey, Larchmont, Noah Marshall , Ngaio McCreadie , Rakish US, Matthias Koenigsweiser, The Editors, Tim Mauger, Alt VFX, Scott Wilson, Will Scowsill, Hugo Munro, Company 3 New York, Sofie Friis Borup, Sonar Music Sydney, Timothy Bridge, Haylee Poppi, Level 2 Music, Karl Richter , Mel Pantz , Collider Studios, Andrew Van der Westhuyzen, Hoss Ghonouie, Nino Munoz US, OMD Brisbane, Kate Sharkey, Enthral, Cameron Smith, Michelle Beckett, The General Store, Danny Lattouf, Erin Banning
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Client
Michael Hill
Description:
Michael Hill Jewellers was founded in 1979 in Whangārei, New Zealand, with a vision to make fine jewellery more accessible. Over the decades, it expanded across Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, becoming a household name, but for the wrong reasons.
The brand became more famous for deals than fine jewellery. Years of retail-led promotion had convinced shoppers to buy from Michael Hill overwhelmingly on price - eroding perceptions of quality and commoditising the product.
Considered downmarket and outdated, the Michael Hill brand was fatigued, overly masculine and mass. The result? A business with three years of decline in revenue.
However, the ambition was to break out from this discount retailing to become a premium jewellery brand. This desire was calculated. Successfully repositioning the brand would increase their market share and find new growth in higher-value customer segments.
To do this a complete brand transformation was needed. We were tasked to create a whole new identity. One that would move them into a more aspirational, premium space.
So to create a new future we looked to the past.
Central to our work was the insight that Michael and Christine Hill were originally independent fine jewellers hailing from New Zealand. But after decades of retail discounting this story had been lost.
Instead we embraced these origins, as well as the hallmarks of luxe branding, to elevate the brand.
The outcome was the Michael Hill brand rediscovering its romance—reigniting desire, deepening emotional connections. No longer a slave to the cadence of the retail calendar and price promotions, it’s ready to seize the opportunity for enduring future growth, not just by looking forward but also looking back.