Sandford Orchards is perhaps the finest cidermaker in the world. It sources all its apples from within 20 miles of its ciderworks in the Creedy Valley of Devon, and still employs traditional processes of fermentation, maturation and expert blending across its whole range.

In 2023, Sandford Orchards was at a crucial point. Its product was leagues ahead of the competitors in terms of taste. You’d find it in Michelin-star restaurants and supermarkets; it was popular with casual pub drinkers and cider aficionados alike. But to grow, it needed even more people to discover how good its cider actually is. The challenge? Its unique and emotive stories, from the passion of its founder Barny Butterfield to the 200 varieties of apple it uses and the quality of its methods, had to be told, not hidden.

Transformation doesn’t just happen. To create a living, breathing brand world that’s as carefully crafted as Sandford Orchards’ ciders, it was essential that we understood every facet of the brand, where it started and where it’s going. This is a process that’s often overlooked, but it’s crucial to effective marketing. To really get under the skin of Sandford Orchards, UNTOLD held a two-day Story Method workshop with brand stakeholders to uncover the history, innovation, dedication and heritage that underpins it.

We started by defining a mission and vision for Sandford Orchards, through which we identified the brand’s authenticity and substance. We then filled in the details, working on products, process, sustainability, and heritage. By exploring these areas we came to appreciate the richness and quality of the inherent stories. We knew that by presenting them more concisely we could create an engaging brand world that cider drinkers would want to be a part of.

Through The Story Method, we built four ‘pillars’ that form the core of Sandford Orchards’ world: Barny’s story, process and products, place, and food and drink.

The next step was to decide how to populate those pillars with key messages, then convey those messages through media and move Sandford Orchards from being ‘just’ an incredible cidermaker to a whole world with a story you want to be a part of. This would represent a total shift in the way the brand presents itself to customers.

Cider done right meets marketing done right.

Our delivered work began with a tone of voice guide to define the Sandford Orchards way of speaking. We took the learnings from The Story Workshop and created a brand bible that would ensure all company communication was story-led.

At the heart of our work is a beautifully shot and evocative six-minute film that takes viewers into the world of Sandford Orchards, with Barny’s personal journey at its heart. For the first time, the public could see properly the history, process and personality of ‘Cider Done Right’.

This long-form content had enough detail and richness to be cut down into further assets to reach consumers in different ways. We created a punchy two-minute version for buyer presentations. We drew out nine core messages, concentrating all the emotion and craft of the film into easily digestible, social-friendly Reels that could be used for years to come.

Set up as an e-comm website, the Sandford Orchards wasn’t bringing visitors straight into an inspiring world of orchards, artisan cidermaking and apples. The truth of the brand. Through competitor analysis and thoughtful design, we advised on a website refresh that would deliver the user into a journey from orchard to glass, bringing the taste of properly crafted cider to life.

We also completely redrafted the Sandford Orchards’ packaging label copy. It was an opportunity to tell the story about the product inside the bottle and would reach prospective buyers as well as those who were already drinking a cider – both consumer groups who could be introduced to the brand world.

We moved the product copy beyond descriptions of taste and brought in evocative mini-stories about place, apples and process.

This suite of carefully crafted assets is helping to cement Sandford Orchards’ status as Britain’s finest cidermaker at scale, while showing the world the authenticity and heart of the story. We think the next chapter might be their greatest yet.

Audience responses

‘This film was really fascinating. I only developed a taste for cider last year after many years of ales. I'm going to have to try Sandfords ciders now.’

‘It’s so amazing to finally see the big boys doing cider right.’

‘Tell you what, I came to this video because of the competition, but I’ve ended up loving it. Sandford Orchard is my favourite cider, not just because I'm a Devon boy, but because it's made so bloody well. And this film shows that perfectly.’