Chadstone, a Melbourne shopping mall described as The Fashion Capital, seems like the logical place to launch The New Era of jewellery brand Michael Hill.
It’s a rebrand that aims to honour Michael Hill’s roots in small town New Zealand, but also elevate the brand to new heights, says Chief Marketing Officer, Jo Feeney.
“We’ve very meticulously worked through the rebrand in the sense that it really encapsulates every element of our DNA, our history and heritage.
“And so every element has been very thought out – our logo, the fonts… our colour palette is all about the beautiful green landscape of New Zealand.”
With stores in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, the new brand is fresher, lighter, more elegant and refined, says Feeney. As for the new logo, it incorporates an M and an H for the brand name and also founder Sir Michael Hill, but also replicates the windows his wife, Lady Christine, was so passionate about, she adds.
As we chat over Teams, there are images of the windows displays Lady Christine created for their first jewellery shop in the 1970s stuck to the wall behind Feeney.
“That was a lot of our inspiration, to make sure we had a nod to that in our rebranding and it really also talks to our commitment to ensure craft and creativity stay an important part of the brand,” says Feeney.
The brand refresh provided the team with the opportunity to update its website to improve customers’ ability to explore, but it’s the Chadstone store that really epitomises what they want customer experience to be like.
Michael Hill expanded its current store at Australia’s largest shopping precinct to make it its first global flagship – it was completely gutted and redesigned with the new brand and its customers in mind, says Feeney.
“It’s a very calm and inviting and relaxing environment. We’ve got a beautiful diamond destination zone at the back of the store, which has got these semi-private consulation booths so people can sit and really be immersed in the experience.”
After 18 months of watching it all come to life, the launch of The New Era and new Chadstone store back in May was exciting – not least because two VIP guests were in attendance.
“We were fortunate enough to have Sir Michael and Lady Christine fly to Australia for the event, which was really very special,” says Feeney.
Forty-five years after starting Michael Hill in Whangārei, the Hills fell in love with the new-look Chadstone store, with Sir Michael calling it his dream shop. They both also love the rebrand, she adds.
“Well over a year ago, we showed Michael and he got emotional… he think it’s really the future for us and it’s going to pave the way for excitings things to come for the business.”
That is definitely the aim, with Feeney saying she and the team are on an aspirational brand journey to lift Michael Hill to a more premium position in the market.
When it comes to jewellery, there’s a white space between the broad mass market players and the likes of exclusive brands like Tiffany’s, says Feeney. It’s in that space where the independent jewellers tend to play, and that’s where Michael Hill wants to move to.
But it’s a move that had to be carefully executed so as not to alienate the current base of loyal customers, which includes 2.5 million in Brilliance, their membership programme, she adds.
With Feeney passionate about data and understanding customers, Michael Hill has been using a brand tracker for the last three years to get insights into what current and non-Michael Hill customers are thinking.
“We did a lot of research and work with current customers to share with them the idea of this direction and what it looked like and they were super excited about it.
“Our current customers felt like we hadn’t evolved enough actually, so it gave us a lot of reassurance that this was the right thing for us to do… we are still the same brand at heart.”
Sir Michael and Lady Christine were always creative people and cared about the craft and process of developing beautiful pieces – so that remains consistent and true, says Feeney.
But, the rebrand aims to improve customer experience – to make the process of buying jewellery more enjoyable and easier.
That also means ensuring the brand remains accessible in terms of price but creating an even bigger focus on life’s moments, no matter how big or small.
“It might be someone buying an 18th birthday present versus what you might buy for a 25th wedding anniversary – two very different things and we actually do feel that we are the brand that can accommodate all of those moments,” says Feeney.
“We’ve added in some beautiful new high jewelry pieces to the collection, but that’s really just adding to the top end rather than taking away from the more affordable end. This isn’t about making ourselves out of reach for people, it’s actually about making people feel even better about coming to shop at Michael Hill.”
Another important aspect of the journey has been product elevation – so not just the design, but the quality of stones and gold materials being used as well as a continued strive towards sustainability.
With an ambition to become one of the world’s most sustainable jewellers and to encourage their industry colleagues to do the same, the brand launched the Michael Hill Foundation in February this year.
“For every lab-grown diamond that you buy at Michael Hill, we plant 10 trees in each of our markets,” says Feeney.
“Then the other side is we have a goal to empower over 100,000 women by 2030 and we support different charities within each of our markets, for example the Women’s Refuge in New Zealand.”
These values of honesty, integrity, authenticity and doing good in the world are what drives Feeney, who has worked across a range of brands including Telstra and Woolworths. Before joining Michael Hill three years ago, she was director of marketing at McDonald’s.
From burgers to diamonds, she’s found there are actually more similarities to her roles than expected, and she’s grateful for the skills she picked up at the fast-food joint.
Her time at McDonald’s included working to reshape the Australian community’s perceptions of the brand, and she finds herself doing something similar at Michael Hill.
McDonald’s is a big business that has to be able to work at pace but also think in the future, which is incredibly important in retail too, Feeney says.
“And data and insight, that is something I have brought to the Michael Hill brand, bringing on brand tracking, building a data and insight team… we now have a philosophy where we look at the data to help shape our future strateiges and help drive the business.”
While she’s passionate about data and strategy, she also loves storytelling, especially in a category like jewelry, and that’s something she’s instilled into the brand over the last three years.
She says she often talks to her team about gratitude – being grateful for the work they get to do and for representing what the customer sees of the brand.
“I also say to them, ‘don’t stop until you’re proud.’”
