A man walked into a bar. He was 28 years of age and another long day of hauling himself up the executive ladder was making him crave R&R. He wasn’t going to get that. Thursday night was about networking. He wondered what beer went best with a Paul Smith belt and Tag Heuer watch.
Mainstream beer is under pressure. The graph of beer consumption in Australia since 1979 looks rather like a ski slope, all heading downwards. In September 2013, it hit its lowest point for 66 years.
Craft beer consumption, on the other hand, is growing, at about six per cent per annum, in fact. In 1990, there were 11 breweries in Australia, owned by three companies. Now, there are 130.
Craft beer, too, is under pressure from a rival – cider. It has the same target market (18-24, fashion conscious), with the same faddish (read, fickle) followers. In the last two years, the proportion of 18 to 24 year-old men drinking cider grew by 50 per cent, and women by 132 per cent.
Craft beer cannot compete with multi-million dollar marketing campaigns and packaging enticements, but it can infuse personal and local attributes into its branding. And most of the 1000-plus craft beer brands throughout the world do lead with stories about the local myths, legends and folklore behind their brands.
Flagship products, seasonal releases and branded environments are threaded into craft beer brand stories. But let’s get back to the battle to be in with the in-crowd which has so much to do with the look of the bottle you hold in your hand.
And let’s hear about it from an authority on the subject: Phil Nobay, creative head of Pusher, the lead creative agency for Burleigh Brewing Co.
Five years ago, Nobay helped launch Bighead, Australia’s first no-carb beer. Bighead was a game changer for Burleigh Brewing as it fused Burleigh’s twin personalities – meticulous beer craftsmen and wild innovators – into a hot Aussie-wide beer brand.
PKN: Where do the ideas for BB’s labels come from?
Phil Nobay: The designs of Burleigh Brewing’s labels and packaging are as varied and surprising as the beers they represent. That’s pretty much the brief – reflect the true character of the beer.
In the case of Hassle Hop, the name came from Peta and Brennan [Fielding], the founders of Burleigh Brewing, and to them it was like naming a child. This one was inspired by the amazing efforts (the hassle) the brewers had gone to, to create a beautifully balanced brew that included all five of their favourite hops.
While it’s a great name and in keeping with the satirical charm of Burleigh beers (with beer names like My Wife’s Bitter), drinkers were unlikely to be attracted by the concept of hard work. After all, many people have a beer to unwind and forget about work!
So that was the creative challenge – to turn a potential negative into a positive. People are much more interested in the end product than the process. So we looked at the result of all that hard work … the feeling of accomplishment at creating such a perfect combination. It reminded us of the trials and tribulations of trying to solve Rubik’s Cube way back in the ‘80s. Those who could crack it were gods amongst men, even if those men were only little boys or girls in the playground. The vibrant colours of the cube worked perfectly against the back-drop of dark brown glass to create a design that really pops.
And it seemed to go down well across Australia. This ‘Bit on the Side’ beer vanished so quickly off our nation’s shelves, Burleigh had to brew a second batch to meet demand, which was a first for their limited run beers.
PKN: We suppose that being seen holding the bottle with the cool – and right – label matters with craft beer?
PN: These days, the beer you’re seen with is as important as the watch you wear and the car you drive. It’s a direct representation of your personality – the more interesting the beer, the more interesting the drinker. This mentality makes craft beer one of the most rewarding industries to design for. Playing safe just doesn’t come into the equation.
PKN: How much involvement do you have in the actual packaging and how important is this to Burleigh Brewing?
PN: The surge in popularity of craft beer is great for the industry, but it has also brought real challenges for brands like Burleigh Brewing. Competitors are being launched into the market at an astonishing rate. Worse still, the multinationals have muscled in. Their accelerated brewing techniques might take one tenth of the time that a true craft beer requires, but they use some very sneaky branding to confuse the customer.
As a result, it’s harder than ever to stand out on the shelf, so distinctive packaging is more vital than ever. And unlike the multinationals, true craft brewers don’t have the endless pockets to produce eye-catching tricks like bespoke bottles.
In the case of Burleigh Brewing, all the beers are bottled by hand, right next to the tanks. Having a single bottling line limits the choice of bottle to just one for all the core 330ml beers. Likewise, the labels are attached during the bottling process so the shapes and stock are standardised across all the beers.
Funnily enough, what might appear more interesting on the shelf can have a negative effect on the end product. Harmful UV rays make beer in clear glass bottles go off about five times faster than traditional brown glass. And even beer in green glass degrades around twice as fast. That’s why Burleigh Brewing insists on sticking with what’s best for the beer, even if that makes it harder to catch the consumer’s eye.
PKN: Tell US about FIG JAM, with its very unique packaging that’s aligned to its brand personality.
PN: The name, Fig Jam, for those who don’t remember this very schoolyard Australian phrase, stands for ‘F#*k, I’m Good – Just Ask Me!’. Anyone who’s ever tried it will agree that the name fits the product perfectly.
The design challenge was to marry the style of an
India pale ale with the laid-back, coastal cool personality of Burleigh. Our creative concept of an Indian elephant riding a skateboard fitted the bill perfectly.
The design was originally launched as a silk-screen printed, limited run ‘Bit on the Side’ beer, but it soon proved popular enough to become a regular member of the family, switching from 650ml tallies to a 330ml bottle with a paper label.
The bottle remained a cutting edge packaging concept, in line with world’s best practice. The four-pack handle is made from 100 per cent recycled content and is itself 100 per cent recyclable. Plus it’s stronger than a cardboard carrier.
It holds the bottles by the neck, with nothing else around them. This allows the labels on the bottles themselves to do the talking, removing the need to print the branding on the outer carton; again, greatly reducing pollution in the production process. The Fig Jam carrier was the brainchild of the team at Burleigh Brewing. It shows the power of real collaboration between a client and its agency.
PKN: What are you looking at or working on now? What’s next in craft beer design and packaging?
PN: The team at Burleigh Brewing has an endless energy for invention. Brewmaster Brennan is always looking for new ways to set the standard in craft brewing with a surprising combination of ingredients, like Black Giraffe, a beer brewed with freshly ground coffee. So there’s always a new design challenge on the horizon.
Pusher is soon to be briefed on Burleigh’s next, highly confidential limited release beer. If the success of our forerunners is anything to go by, the next brief will be to create a 330ml version for the core range.
Burleigh Brewing will never be a mainstream brand. That’s its appeal. And its packaging reflects that.
