Te Aro Brewing Company
Project
Te Aro Brewing Company are a small craft brewery once situated in Wellington suburb of Te Aro and are now situated in Upper Hutt.
They had never had the time or finances to invest in graphic design, branding and marketing.
I was initially bought in to consolidate their brand collateral and create new content before a design agency would come in and do a big rebrand for them.
Problem
After my initial consolidation which was a gap stop before a big brand update by another design agency was to happen.
After the agenci’s big rebrand with no internal designer onboard, the design assets and brand guidelines were not being adhered to and so the branding quickly became incoherent, outdated and unprofessional.
The brewery had too many products and was making them up as and when pleased without any planning around design, branding, marketing or sales.
I returned 2 years later and helped to consolidate and reconfigure the designs to bring them up to date and consistent once again.
Outcome
Having one person focusing on the design assets and creation was implemented to help the brand guides to be kept to.
High-quality content was used on new and updated existing social media platforms to market new products and reach new customers.
A new more coherent website was created to showcase the brewery, and its beers and also to promote its restaurant and taproom.
New packaging forms were introduced like full height can labels, card six pack sleeves and boxes where more surface area could carry the company logo and designs.
More supermarket orders were being made because there was now consistency and quality within the brand that could now stand on supermarket shelves without looking scruffy and outdated
Packaging
One problem the brewery faced was having too many products that were being made very sporadically which meant that there was no planning around the products branding, marketing or sales.
Creating a core range
Te Aro understood that there were too many products to reliably reproduce with varying degrees of financial return, so a core product range was created.
This core range was to be canned in 330ml white cans and boxed in a white minimalist design which suggested reliability, and quality and was obviously a part of the Te Aro Brand.
Limited edition beers would be released along side the core range and could be packaged in larger 440ml black cans.
Glass bottles were being replaced by aluminium cans which were becoming industry standard and which meant the brewery had to revisit their packaging options.
Moving packaging to cans was also seen as a way to gain more surface area on labels and boxes for designs and logos.
Final core range designs
Core range mid development concepts
Limited Edition beers
Alongside the core range, limited edition beers would help bolster the brewery’s product range offering greater variety with more adventurous beers being offered for customers.
Digital Marketing
Te Aro decided to issue a run of a solar system themed limited edition beers over the course of a year. A marketing strategy was drawn up, the first in the companies history to fully utilise social media channels.
Through the use of consistently high quality images and animations the company wanted to shift their branding to a higher level of professionalism and keep in line with the industry.
All beers sold out, many even before they were released.
Te Aro also reached thousands of potential new customers.
