THE CHALLENGE: When you have a wholesale nursery in its third generation of family ownership and a set of investors fronting the cash to make it the first generation of nonfamily ownership, you can picture a scenario where A) the Klupengers, while thankful for the influx of capital, want to make sure the legacy of quality and honesty stay intact, and B) the new owners, while seeing a great nursery in the making, want to help it reach its potential. Thus the question is: How do we increase awareness, appease both new and previous owners and ease the typical customer concerns that accompany a change in ownership?

THE APPROACH: The new owners know business. But it’s the Klupengers who know horticulture. In fact they know it so well that over the generations they’ve earned a national reputation for raising top-quality plants, including some of the best rhododendrons and Japanese maples around. The choice was clear—this was a brand needing to be built on a foundation of heritage.

THE WORK: With a legacy of offering premium plants, the new positioning “We mother nature.” seemed right. The logo was reworked to convey quality, and we used the Klupenger bell to give it a historical nod. (For reasons unknown, Grandpa Klupenger chose a bell as his nursery’s symbol for quality and honesty.) Print ads feature the family and neatly blend nursery science with country-folk charm. And to raise brand awareness at the point of sale, we made grandpa proud by hanging a K-bell on every Klupenger-grown plant.

THE RESULTS: We successfully smoothed corporate transition without losing any of the family ownership equity. And you could say, like a good Japanese maple, their business continues to grow bigger and stronger. But what else would you expect from a renowned nursery.