Truly Deeply/Madly

I like a beer, there’s no point hid­ing it, it comes hand in hand with the Irish Brogue. So nat­u­rally, I pay a lit­tle bit more atten­tion when new beer brands are born. So I was some­what intrigued when I noticed the huge bill­boards on the end of Punt Road with colour­ful DNA graph­ics and a fancy bou­tique bot­tled beer. It was a new brand, 62 with the tag line ‘You know who you are’ and a descrip­tor ‘the per­fectly indi­vid­ual pilsner’

I wasn’t intrigued enough to seek it out or try it, it didn’t seem like my kinda beer, a bit flash, for a fella like me. It wasn’t till stuck at the lights one day, I noticed the Coop­ers logo in the cor­ner of the Ad and felt a thrill. Maybe this beer is worth my atten­tion. Coop­ers are brew­ers I trust. They make great grog.

I love Coop­ers Ales, love the Pale, the Sparkling, their Stout and when I can find it their Extra Strong Vin­tage. It’s every­thing that’s good about Aus­tralian brew­ing, and smart about Aus­tralian Brand­ing. We’ve writ­ten before about thier smart cam­paigns. They are grounded, hon­est and smart, It’s all about good beer. So it was, with a lit­tle excite­ment, I came across a bar draped with 62 beer mats pro­mot­ing the very bev­er­age. I sidled up to the bar, (the only safe way to approach a bar) bought a bot­tle, served with a nice branded glass and got stuck in.

What’s that taste in my mouth?

Heart-break. Dis­ap­point­ing to say the least, not much going on flavour wise, and an unpleas­ant after­taste, now I’m not an expert, my imbib­ing is strictly at an ama­teur level, but I felt let down. (See what the pros think here.) I had the imme­di­ate thought that Coop­ers were mak­ing a play for the ‘Pre­mium’ mar­ket with this bland tast­ing fancy look­ing bev­er­age. Not what I would expect from the brew­mas­ter at Coop­ers. It seemed to have the bit­ter after­taste of a mar­ket­ing depart­ment. It’s a dan­ger­ous thing for a brand to dis­ap­point it’s admir­ers (New Coke any­one), and when a brand comes across as con­trived like this, regain­ing that emo­tional con­nec­tion can be impossible.

It’s not you it’s me…

Now it occurs to me why the Coop­ers brand­ing was so sub­tle on the ads and the bot­tle. This prod­uct aimed at a dif­fer­ent mar­ket from their other beers? It’s like they don’t want us to know what they’re up to. This beer is more about image than integrity, which chaffs against all I under­stood the Coop­ers brand to be. I have an irra­tional feel­ing that I’ve been cheated on by a brand I loved. Coop­ers have got all tarted up and are chas­ing a new mar­ket, mis­tak­enly think­ing there tra­di­tional mar­ket won’t find out or care. Now I under­stand the need for brand exten­sions and for a brew­ing com­pany to make more flavours of beer, is only nat­ural. Many brew­eries do it suc­cess­fully, but as we’ve said before about brand exten­sions, they have to make sense to your cus­tomer. When it does this kind of dam­age to the brand you have to ask your­self, will it be worth it?

Well not for me, Coop­ers and I are going to take a lit­tle break. This expe­ri­ence has changed how I feel about the brand and I’m not sure I can feel the same again. I’m going to see other beers, ciders too. Coop­ers, I’m sure you’ll find some­one new, I just hope it was worth it.

Derek Carroll, Creative Megafauna

If you like to talk to us about keep­ing your brands faith­ful, why not give us a call.

Update:

As a friend pointed out pack­ag­ing is rem­i­nis­cent of Kro­nen­bourg, you be the judge:

Tags: Advertising, Brand Agency, Brand Design, Brand Experience, Brand Strategy, Coopers-Ales, Corporate Image, Graphic Design Melbourne, Packaging, Promotional-marketing, Value of Design, Visual Language

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 4:02 pm and is filed under Brand Design, Brand Strategy, Brand Voice, Experiences, Thinking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.