Black Dinah Chocolatiers

The sweet taste of the salty coast.

challenge

Kate Schafer is no stranger to meeting a challenge. After the inn she worked at closed, Kate knew she had to do something to change her status as an unemployed chef living on a tiny island six miles off the coast of Maine. There on Isle au Haut, Kate cooked up Black Dinah Chocolatiers, using her talents as both chef and writer to create the award-winning confections and singular product stories that defined her brand. But those skills made Kate’s company a victim of her success, inspiring the need for both bigger digs on the mainland and a bigger strategy to support her booming brand.

solution

Pulp+Wire did a deep dive into Black Dinah’s brand DNA, creating the Brand Book that identified Kate’s unique vision, and providing a guide for channeling the Black Dinah brand voice. New packaging and a new website captured Kate’s whimsical off-the-charts approach to chocolate. A coordinated social media campaign spread the word through organic and promoted posts, influential bloggers, sponsored giveaways, and regular seasonally-themed emails.

results

Black Dinah made the 90-mile move from its former tiny island home to a modern institutional kitchen during the critical months just prior to the business’s prime holiday season. The company’s website transition to a site designed to reflect the revitalized brand and built to handle a robust increase in sales occurred during this same time. Despite those challenges, a more focused brand voice was broadcast through an orchestrated mix of channels, inspiring growth that was regularly tracked to maximize strategic shifts in the campaign. All led to a 40% increase in income during a transitional year that other companies would have been satisfied to simply survive.