Cantina Sociale di Mendrisio — Brand Design & Corporate Identity
A historic cooperative with a new language.
- Client
- Cantina Sociale di Mendrisio
- Sector
- Food & Beverage · Winemaking
- Market
- CH Ticino + German-speaking Switzerland
- Year
- 2023
- Services
- Brand Design & Corporate IdentityContent ProductionAdvertising, Marketing & Strategy
- Website
- cantinamendrisio.ch
Cantina Sociale di Mendrisio is a cooperative with a long winemaking tradition in the Mendrisiotto region. It had the wine, the history, the quality, but communications stuck in the 2000s and no structured social presence. We worked on visual identity, SEO content, photography production and packaging, accompanying the winery in the launch of its new ecommerce site and its first local and Swiss-wide ADS campaigns.
A historic cooperative dressed in early-2000s clothes.
Cantina Sociale di Mendrisio is one of the most deeply rooted wine producers in the Mendrisiotto region, a cooperative running the largest estate in Ticino, with a history of sharing that spans generations of winemakers. The wine was there, the story around the wine was not. Its website had been frozen for around twenty years: slow loading, dated graphics, difficult user experience, no editorial section, no working ecommerce. Social channels were neglected, with no calendar or editorial line, and the brand identity had been layered over the years without a coherent system, with every application telling a slightly different cantina. We took on the project in 2023, with a stated goal: give the cantina a voice worthy of the product and take the brand beyond Ticino, towards inner Switzerland, through digital channels.
Identity, content, packaging: one single system.
We built a coordinated visual system applied to every support, from the website to bottle labels, from capsules to corks, from communication materials to social posts, working with the winery on material research, print embellishments and label finishes. On digital we identified the two reference personas, the local Ticino clientele and the inner-Switzerland consumer, wrote the new site's texts with SEO in mind in Italian and German, coordinated text-image integration with the third-party supplier who built the site and accompanied the winery in the launch of its new ecommerce site. We produced photography from scratch for site, company profile and social channels, with no stock imagery, and made a browsable, downloadable electronic catalogue, conceived as a B2B sales tool, a contemporary version of the old paper price list, to reach restaurateurs, retailers and wine shops by email. Campaigns started on the local Ticino market, with GoogleADS built to intercept those searching for specific Mendrisiotto wines, regional Merlot, food-and-wine gifts, suppliers for restaurants and private clients in the area, and once local presence was consolidated a second front opened on inner Switzerland, with German-language campaigns dedicated to promoting the ecommerce and targeted at a consumer looking for quality regional wines outside large-scale retail. Alongside them the Instagram and Facebook calendar, with real photography, regional storytelling and seasonal content tied to harvest and vineyard cycles, and the optimisation of the Google Business profile for local searches around Mendrisio.
A cooperative cantina already has everything: the land, the wine, the people. What it lacks is rarely a better product: it is a voice that tells the story as it deserves.
Outsmart Team
From the bottle to the screen.
The visual system is applied from the labels through to the communication materials, and the bilingual site is online with the texts and photography produced for it.
The project in numbers
01Why should a wine cooperative invest in branding?
Because regional wine increasingly sells outside its region, where there is no personal link with the producer. Online, in German, in front of a marketplace shelf, the product needs a clear visual voice. Branding isn't decoration: it is how a historic cooperative stays recognisable in a changing market.
02What does a rebranding project for a winery include?
For Cantina Sociale di Mendrisio: visual identity system applied to labels, capsules, corks and corporate materials; content coordination for the new website built by third parties; original photography production for company profile, site and social; B2B electronic catalogue setup; local and Swiss-wide GoogleADS campaigns; Instagram and Facebook social management; Google Business optimisation.
03How do you do lead generation for a winery that also sells B2B?
With a well-made electronic catalogue, browsable and downloadable, that works as a digital price list for restaurateurs and retailers. With local GoogleADS intercepting specific searches (Mendrisiotto wine, Ticino Merlot supplier). With a curated Google Business page that returns real reviews and updated photos. B2B still passes a lot through a clear website and trustworthy search results.
04Can a Ticino wine be promoted in inner Switzerland?
Yes, with ADS campaigns in German targeted at a Swiss consumer interested in quality regional wines, avoiding large-scale retail. Generic searches on Schweizer Wein are very competitive; specific ones (Tessiner Merlot, Ticino Wein online) much less. Positioning on specific niches is the realistic path for a cooperative-sized cantina.
See the project live
