The Power of A Solid Brand in Craft Beer:
Cameron's Brewing: How a struggling craft beer brand turned around
An Overview-
Cameron's Brewing was established out of Ontario, Canada in 1997. At the time the industry of craft breweries was small and many Craft brands modeled their branding strategy after the beer giants in the industry. While using the larger firms branding strategy 10 years ago may have been effective, after the giant boom in the craft industry in recent years it has become less of a niche market in the beer industry and more of its own industry with it's own identity. Cameron's Brewing looked to Ontario branding B2B company, CACTUS, to help with their rebranding.
The Challenge-
Cameron's Brewing Company was a brand in desperate need of a facelift with them seeing declining sales along with a weak shelf presence compared to competitors. Cameron had not changed its design since its first bottle in the 90's. The company was selling around Canada in Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia; along with parts of the U.S. and Europe. While they were selling to a broad distribution channel they kept seeing sales slipping on a consistent basis. The industry as a whole was seeing great growth overall but Cameron's was only seeing growth in single-digit percentages. The increase in industry growth also saw a great increase in competition with the number of Ontario breweries going from around 30 to over 100 in the past 5 years.
The Solution-
With no redesign since the 90's CACTUS and Cameron's wanted to modernize the brand without losing Cameron's heritage. With Cameron already being an established brewery it was really important to let consumers know they were evolving while keeping aspects of the original brand. "New look. Same great quality & taste." CACTUS first wanted to update Cameron's "barley man" logo and secondly wanted to switch from bottles to cans to add room for more visuals. They wanted to use visuals that focused on the geographic history on Cameron's, while telling a story about the beer different styles. Creating bold visuals with a unified and identifiable brand to help recognition and separate from competition on shelfs was paramount.
The Design-
When creating the design for Cameron's rebranding CACTUS wanted to go with a simple graphic design style with bright colors. With an industry trend of highly stylized art on craft cans the simple design style went against the norm which helped to separate itself as a brand when on the shelf. Beer naming was an important aspect to add to the brands personality to make up for the more simple designs. Also a modular design strategy was implemented to make integration into apparel, digital/social media, and advertising easier.
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| (Before) (After) |
The rebranding for Cameron Brewing created a lot of new consumer engagement & saw sales nearly triple after the strategy was implemented.
- 7,000 new social media follower
- 180% increase in total sales since rebrand
- 120 new location began to offer Cameron after rebrand
References:
- · “Cameron's Brewing - Craft Beer Brand Case Study.” GOCACTUS Inc., www.gocactus.com/case-study/camerons-brewing/.
The Ever Growing Craft Beer Industry:
Lagunitas Brewing Co. Help Display Craft Beer Industry Growth
Lagunitas Brewing Co. was founded in 1993 by Tony Magee in Petaluma, California. Since their start in the early 90's Lagunitas has grown into one of the nations highest producing craft beer brewery. Lagunitas is family-owned and has seen tremendous growth since its start while also doing a great job at expanding to keep up. Being known today for their flagship brew Lagunitas IPA, they have had to work hard to keep up with the growing demand but also not forgetting to have a strong dedication to their community. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat said it best when talking about the breweries popularity: "Tony Magee just can't make beer fast enough."
Since 2004 the Lagunitas Brewery has seen production growth rate of around 500% going from being brewing 27,000 barrels per year to 160,000 in 2011, just 7 years later. Seeing this exponential increase in demand for the brewery's product Lagunitas started a multi-million dollar project to expand their production capabilities. This expansion project allowed Lagunitas the ability to producing 600,000 barrels per year by the time it was finished in mid 2012. The ability to produce this volume of products makes Lagunitas one of the largest craft brewery in the United States behind only the Boston Beer Company producers of Samual Adams and the Sierra Nevada Brewing Company. Looking to compete further Lagunitas announced in April 2012 their plans to expand further looking to produce nationwide and constructing a new brewery in Chicago, Illinois that was completed in 2013.
As Lagunitas grew so did the amount of success the company saw, and as part of its founding principle they looked to share this success with their community. The company gave nearly 2,000 donations worth almost $200,000 in 2011 to help contribute good to their community. Donations came in many forms such as employee time, products to be used for fundraisers, or allowing their facilities to be used a a community meeting place. The Lagunitas Brewing Co. is a great example to focus on when looking at the great growth seen in the industry of craft breweries in recent years.
Here is A Video Of Founder, Tony Magee, Telling the Story Behind The Lagunitas Brewing Co.-
(Video Credit: NBayBusinessJournal. “Tony Magee Tells the Story of Lagunitas Brewing Co.” YouTube, YouTube, 13 July 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sY2nTFY4c0.)
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