Misty The Garden Pixie is Born - Wish Farms

Misty The Garden Pixie is Born

I think it is fitting, since our focus or “North Star” is building Misty the Garden Pixie into a brand of distinction, that I tell the story about our name change to Wish Farms and how Misty came to be.

 

Back in 2009, I recognized that our Wishnatzki Farms brand was not well-recognized.  Consumers could not remember or spell it and in a survey of 400 Florida shoppers, only one could recall the name unaided.  People in the trade already referred to us as Wish.  I thought that Wish Farms would be a more memorable name, so I spoke to friends and family about it.  I got a mixed response.  My wife, Therese, thought I was nuts!  She said, “What?  You are going to change the name of your company that has your family name?  What would your grandfather think?”  She made me feel a little bad for even considering doing such a “terrible” thing.  It caused me to reflect on what I was about to do.  After a while it hit me.  I had the answer.  I knew what my grandfather, Harris, would think.

Harris Wishnatzki first traveled to Plant City in 1929.  In the 1930’s he became well known to area growers.  He gained their respect through being fair.  Wishnatzki was not an easy name to pronounce, so he soon became known as Mr. Wish.  After that reflection, I found comfort in changing the company name to Wish Farms.  My grandfather, Mr. Wish, would certainly approve.  Therese quickly bought into the idea and became my biggest supporter.

Once we had clarity on the name change, it was time to find a logo that we could adopt.  In that same survey, we showed respondents different ideas for a new logo.  One of those concepts was a primitive looking Misty.  The respondents overwhelmingly liked the image.  We worked with several variations and had input from a lot of people on her design.  Andy Gutierrez, our Sr. V.P. of Operations, was instrumental in helping to direct the artists into creating the current logo – right down to her red dress and strawberry blonde hair.

Her name was my idea.  I didn’t want to just call her a fairy.  That seemed way too commonplace.  There are fairies everywhere.  She needed to be special.  I first came up with the idea that she was a pixie and then I expanded on that thought to be a garden pixie.  It seemed our garden pixie needed a name.  Trixie rhymed but, there was something about it that seemed wrong.  The name Misty seemed to fit.  Misty the Garden Pixie flowed.

I went to our ad agency and announced that I had named her.  They were a little surprised at first that I had taken the initiative to do that, but they agreed that she should have a name.  Misty the Garden Pixie was a collaborative effort.  We formally introduced her in January of 2010.  I just love Misty!

 

Wish Farms is headed towards great things.

 

Gary Wishnatzki

Head Pixie
Blog by Wish Farms