The Singleton

Discover how Design4Retail reimagined The Singleton’s identity for Global Travel Retail, crafting a sensorial brand world that evokes flavour without a single sip.

Brand Activations Global Retail Toolkits

A sensorial moment redefining the Singleton identity within global travel retail

the brief

The Diageo Singleton team approached D4R to design a new retail identity for the GTR market and create a permanent display that expresses both the quality of the brand and a sense of deliciousness, without necessarily needing to taste the product.

To help us understand the brief and immerse in the world of ‘The Singleton’, we were taken by Diageo on a tour of the distillery in ‘Glen Ord’ which gave us deeper insight into the target customers and the type of experience that the brand seeks to connect between the brand home and it’s expression within the global travel retail environment.

Strategy

To deliver a creative strategy that truly works for the brand and enables uniquely ownable concept exploration, we researched both the marketplace and out‑of‑sector brands facing similar challenges. From that work, we built a solid strategy grounded in project truths and drivers, supported by strategic pillars that shape all our activity and drive the objectives distilled from the brief.

We drew inspiration from our visit to the brand’s home to develop our initial concept, which we visualised through a series of mood boards. We explored how to bring aspects of the brand to life through material choices and a deliberate colour story—always tying our approach back to the evolving brand world and the emerging “Gardens of Abundance” campaign.

Inspired by our visit to the brand’s home, we dove straight into the creative direction journey. We sketched rough concepts and assembled focused mood boards to visualise a fresh retail identity. Through these early drafts, we identified distinct forms, structures, and details that echo the brand’s origins, flavour profiles, and epicurean essence.

We chose materials and a thoughtful colour story that align with the “Gardens of Abundance” campaign. At the same time, we defined how to communicate product categories, taste, key brand values, and USPs and developed a tone of voice to ensure a cohesive visual and verbal customer experience.

realisation

Upon commencing 3D visualisation, we applied our intended conceptual direction to the GTR wall bays first. This enabled us to visualise one of the most common executions across the brands estate. Starting with wall bays created the opportunity to represent how we would suggest expressing the brand, show the power of category management and hero products.

Following approval, we applied the aesthetic and concept vernacular across a suite of fixtures such as gondolas, promo sites and beyond, testing and refining the concept to meet the needs of the environment and the developing product campaign works.

Bottle risers

Large wall bays

Small wall bays

Mid floor gondola

With an established conceptual direction refined for the permanent visibility executions, we moved onto the development of a pop-up environment, centred around the ‘ Gardens of Abundance’ collection. We accentuated the core recognisable forms, blending the campaign narrative with the structural direction and materiality of the brand world. Special attention was paid to the customer journey, ensuring the experience activated the brand effectively, from a tasting ceremony, to gifting and campaign expression.

Following the successful sign off of the concept toolkit, we moved to design intent and then technical development. This led to the creation of drawings that provide all the technical detail required to enable manufacture and production of our concept across markets. After the launch of the collection within airports we delivered support for the Cannes preview of the concept for stakeholder sell-in, and this went on to drive impetus for global launch of the ‘Gardens of Abundance’ collection launch. Which we are now starting to see going live in GTR.