New England Brewing Company
RENEWED BRAND RECOGNITION
PROBLEM
New England Brewing Company is a revered brand within CT and brews it's flagship beer Sea Hag IPA. The issue was that most drinkers didn't know that they brewed Sea Hag. The beer's brand surpassed the recognition of the brewery itself. How could we surmount that?
INSIGHT
After sitting down and reviewing the issue, conducting a brand audit, we determined that we needed to develop a solution that retained the NEBCO brand and put the focus on the brewery, itself. It would also be important to emphasize the existing art that made the brewery's quirky style so memorable.
SOLUTION
We determined that NEBCO was in need of a new brand architecture that allowed the brewery to be front and center. A "cap" was developed to house the logo, giving it prominence and allowing it to repeat. This provided the ability to view the logo regardless of the position of the can.
Above are the two versions of the flagship Sea Hag IPA can designs. The cans on the left are the original design, on the right the new design. The new direction allows the name to be seen no matter where the can is viewed, whether it is in a case, a store cooler or on a package store or bar shelf. It also gives more prominence to the branding by giving each component, the name of the beer, the art, and the description it's own portion of the can to be housed in. This allowed there to be consistency throughout all of the offerings, giving NEBCO's cans much needed organization. This was then applied to all of the releases from direct to print cans to labels without losing NEBCO's unique style and sensibility.
Illustration work by Craig Gilbert
RESULTS
The branding changes that were made were immediately recognized by the distributors and retailers, and ultimately made it easier for customers to find New England Brewing Company's products on an already crowded craft beer shelf.
