The Idea:

For three decades, the company’s namesake, Mardo Abajian, ran a storefront cigar business in Southern California. When retirement led Mardo and his wife, Ann, to Florida around the turn of the last decade, rapid changes in the regulatory and business climate were already putting immense pressure on the business. The company had to change with the times.

When Mardo passed away in mid-2015, the mantle for carrying on — and evolving — the cigar business fell to his son, Gerard, and his son’s best friend, Neil Garcia. Neil and Gerard quickly launched a new direction for the company, named in Mardo’s memory, and built a strategy that includes physical storefronts in Laguna Niguel, California and Sarasota, Florida.

The Solution:

A complete rebrand to present this iconic neighborhood brand in to a brand that would last though the future. A new mission statement was founded dedicating the future of this business to the hard work and humble greetings of its predecessor. The goal was to create a modern inviting simbol their audience could understand. The Mardo M was born to illustrate a combination of personality and togetherness resembling a geometric cigar. The symbol became an everlasting memory of his dads last cigar.