When and how to rebrand your brewery

by Cody Fague and Isaac Arthur (as found on craftbrewingbusiness.com)

This piece is aimed at established breweries. Whether you’ve been brewing for five years, or for 25, rebranding can be an important step to reflecting positive changes and growth to your audience. But it’s not something to be taken lightly and there are some important factors that should drive the decision. Let’s talk about some of these reasons as well as additional issues to consider before undertaking the process.

Starting off, businesses don’t rebrand just for the sake of rebranding. “Hey, it’s Tuesday. Let’s spend $50K!” There’s got to be a problem you’re trying to solve, or an opportunity you can’t pass up. Some reasons a brewery may consider rebranding:

• Your homespun look, while adored by many longtime fans, may not properly reflect your core values to new customers.
• Your identity, packaging and/or website are dated. It happens.
• Your website is barely usable and it’s got you thinking about other communication tools.
• Your competition is aggressively marketing and selling more beer than you.
• You’re going to be distributing in a new market (or you’d like to).
• You’re repositioning (new beer styles, new location, new concept/etc. )

One of the most important things to consider when looking to rebrand is taking stock of your brand equity. Basically, this is all the positive connotations, messaging and positioning you already represent to your audience. This translates to your visual identity system as well — do you “own” a certain color, typeface, texture or other visual element? Think New Belgium Brewing Co.’s iconic cruiser or Anchor Steam’s anchor and ribbon illustration.

Read the Full Article Here