Morning! 

Quick admin note before we get started: I’m experimenting today by including dozens of links in this issue. 

This is *technically* too many links for a newsletter. Or at least it runs afoul of every email best practice there is. 

But I want to give you a comprehensive look at how to think about, and plan for, your rebrand in case that’s on the horizon. So I’m pulling in several relevant blogs, podcasts and book chapters to give you a deeper context on these issues where appropriate.

Please shoot me an email after reading and let me know what you think:

I love it. More links!

Ew, no. Rein it in champ. 

Alright, let’s get to it. 


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Rebranding can be one of the most valuable steps your brewery ever takes. 

If done well, it can breathe new life into your brand, drive an increase in sales and position your brewery for success over the coming years. 

But this process is not without risk. 

If bungled, you can actually see a decline in sales. You can lose important on and off-premise placements. You can alienate long time fans and fail to recruit new drinkers at the same time.

Oh, and you’re spending many tens of thousands of dollars to do all of this. 

(No pressure.)

These risks notwithstanding, we’re helping breweries of all sizes, and ages, across the country (and up in Canada) rebrand right now. So no matter how risky this process can be, the deeper issues driving these moves remain in place.  

CODO has rebranded more than 40 breweries to date, and we’ve developed a repeatable, proven process to help manage this entire process, stem to stern. 

And a big part of this process is laying the important ground work to ensure our clients have a chance to be successful in the first place.

So today, I’d like to walk through a few ways we do this and explore how you can de-risk your rebrand if you’ve got one on deck sometime soon.

(Above): Craft Beer, Rebranded and its companion workbook are a step-by-step guide to map out a winning strategy ahead of your brewery's rebrand.

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1. 

You need to clearly define what problems & opportunities you’re addressing

Before embarking on a rebrand, it’s important to first examine why you’re wanting to make a change in the first place. 

What pain points are you dealing with that make you think this is the right move? 

What market forces, competitive set changes, and internal shifts make you think that investing in a revamp right now is the best use of your time, energy and capital? 

And on the flip side, what exciting opportunities do you see that a revamp could help you achieve?

Rebranding will always address a variety of pain points, but our project work more often than not revolves around building on and maintaining momentum as much as it does addressing some existential problem.

No matter where you land here, you need to understand what issue(s) you’re addressing so you know the proper next step.

Read more about our Evolution vs. Revolution heuristic to get a quick lay of the land on this idea.

> On Brewery Rebrands: Evolution vs. Revolution [ Podcast ]

> Equally important here is when not to rebrand. [ from Craft Beer, Rebranded ]

(Above): KettleHouse Brewing's rebrand had a clear objective: Carefully evolve their existing identity and set them up for regular releases over the coming years that add to the overall look vs. veering off course.

Read more about this rebrand here.

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2. 

Do you need a full rebrand, or could a lighter touch brand and/or package refresh accomplish your goals?

A full rebrand can be expensive and takes time to execute properly. But you might not need to rip everything down to the studs here.

If your Brand Strategy calls for it, a more subtle identity and/or package refresh might get you a great return on your investment (minus some of the risk associated with a larger shift). 

Caveat here: Don’t let the tail wag the dog.

You should try to not let budget dictate how you address your problems IF possible. I know every dollar counts right now, but if you actually do need to dramatically change things up for whatever reason, then some sort of refresh, no matter how little you spend on it, likely won’t fix the core problem you need to address in the first place.

We’ve written about package and brand refreshes before. Here are a few links if you'd like to read more on this topic:

> Rebrands vs. Refresh: What’s the difference? [ BBT Issue ]

> When should you refresh your packaging? [ BBT Issue ]

(Above): Fernson Brewing's package refresh is a great example of how a laser-focused update (vs. a broader rebrand) can move the needle. 

Read more about this project here and listen to a podcast conversation with Fernson for even more context here. 

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3. 

Identify and involve the the correct stakeholders

Writing this newsletter gives us interesting insight into what people like to read: How does a particular headline affect open rates, which sort of content spurs the most click throughs and/or responses, etc. 

I say this to say that whenever we send out a wonky, more process-focused BBT issue on something like organizing your key stakeholders ahead of a rebrand, it performs an order of magnitude worse than, say, a sexy rebranding case study. 

We’re talking a ~70% average open rate dropping down to ~50%. (Or lower!)

And look, I get it. 

Do you want to read about how to properly interview an investor so they won’t come back and ruin your project two months later because they feel like they weren’t included enough along the way? Oooooor, would you rather watch us sock a few dingers look at a bunch of flashy icons and packaging concepts?

But if you’re planning to rebrand, I maintain that organizing your key stakeholders ahead of time is every bit as mission critical as properly defining your Brand Strategy and making all that killer(!!!) graphic design work.

Why?

Because all of our (and your) hard work — framing your Brand Strategy, building your Modular Brand Identity System development, your packaging and website, whatever it is we’re making — stands a good chance of not making it out into the wild if your internal stakeholders aren’t properly managed.

The project will either go south and not be completed. Or perhaps worse, whatever ends up getting shipped will be watered down and probably won’t help you move the needle anyway.  

I could go on and on here about how important it is to tag in your retailers and distributors, how to engage your fans in this process, how to identify and manage hidden stakeholders and on the importance of fighting off even the slightest hint of a committee being involved in this process. 

But I’ll stop here. Hit this link for further reading on this:

> Organizing your internal rebranding project team [ BBT Issue ]

(Above): Mission Brewing's brand refresh leaned heavily into their visual equity. Read the original case study here.

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4. 

It’s Brand Strategy all the way down 

I just outlined how managing all of your key stakeholders is key to a successful outcome. The other half of this equation is properly defining your Brand Strategy. 

Your Brand Strategy includes all the recurring stuff we talk about here on BBT, things like defining:

– Your positioning and key differentiators 
– Your brand voice and personality 
– Your key messaging pillars
– Your brand story 
– Your Brand Essence
– Your strategic objectives (how you will achieve, and maintain, long term differentiation in the marketplace)

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– How all of this looks and feels via Mood Boards. How you take these ideas into the real world via your brand identity and package design.

This work is important because it gets everyone together to work through challenging issues and make important decisions long before you ever put pencil to paper to work on a logo or can design.

This upstream strategy work drives all of the downstream design decisions. This ensures that all that whiz bang graphic design (that everyone likes looking at so. much. more. than the wonky stuff) is strategically sound and helps you accomplish your goals.

(Above): Brand Strategy work for Good George Brewing's rebrand. Read more about this New Zealand brewery here. 

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5. 

Conduct a Brand Audit to define your visual and Brand Equity 

A brand audit is a rigorous examination of all of your brewery’s internal and external communications going back to your earliest days. This includes any existing positioning and brand strategy documents, your brand identity system (and guidelines), package design, POS and other sales assets, merch, digital (website, social media, email), key events and festivals, and on and on.

You do this to determine what visual and Brand Equity you’ve developed as well as which elements are important to retain and build on moving forward.

This work actually happens during your Brand Strategy phase (at least it does in CODO's process), but no matter when you tackle it, this will be an important part of figuring out how you revamp your brewery’s brand. 

Here are a few more links to learn more about Brand Equity:

> What is Brand Equity, really? [ BBT Issue ]

> Defining your Brand Equity: Fast & Slow [ BBT Issue ]

> When to jettison your Brand Equity [ BBT Issue ]

(Above): One of our project goals for Left Field Brewery's refresh was to update their brand identity and packaging so subtly that their fans might not even notice the change.

Read more about this project here.

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6. 

Knock your new work out of the park 

This point sounds obvious, but a great way of de-risking your rebrand is to just crush the graphic design portion of the project. A cool logo update and beautiful packaging will get you noticed in retail and knock off any rough edges from your refresh itself (e.g. the inevitable small group of people who will grumble about any change.)

If we can look at Anchor's catastrophic rebrand as an example, I believe that Anchor’s biggest crime during this process wasn’t throwing away its gorgeous visual equity (though, that’s pretty damn bad), but that they replaced it with abysmally-designed packaging.

To be clear, throwing away all their visual equity was a mistake. Full stop. But if they had replaced it with something that was at least *attractive* (a low bar here), I don't think the push back would've been as extreme.  

Contrast this with Fat Tire’s latest revamp. They threw all equity out the window, but at least the design is lovely. That does’t guarantee this iteration will actually right the ship and help the brand's sagging sales come back, but it isn’t as offensive.

My point is that if you’re revamping your branding and packaging, you have to absolutely crush this work.

It has to be gorgeous and compelling. It has to stand out from your completive set. It has to work across a variety of channels. And if the strategy prescription calls for it, it should honor where you’ve come from while also signaling where your brewery is headed. 

But above all, it needs to be beautiful.

(Above, Top): Anchor Brewing's abysmal rebrand. Read our original thoughts on this (all the way back in issue 2 of BBT) here.

(Above, Bottom): Prost Brewing's rebrand is one of the best case studies in the industry for how a rebrand can drive an increase in sales and growth, even during a down market. Read the original case study here.


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7. 

Consider a staggered rebrand launch 

Let’s look way ahead now to when you wrap up and launch your rebrand.

Think about how you’re going to announce this change to the world. How (and when) are you going to let your entire staff and internal B2B stakeholders (retailers and wholesalers) know about the change? 

And when (and how) are you going to tell your fans? How can we use this roll out to celebrate this change and brig your customers along for the ride?

Enter the Staggered Rebrand Launch.

This has become CODO’s de facto recommendation for how breweries should roll out their revamp. 

But back to today’s thesis, a staggered rollout is a great way to de-risk your rebrand because you can put stuff out in the market incrementally, warm people up to the look and control your output (e.g. COGs associated with full implementing your new look all at once).

Here’s how we’ve traditionally handled rollouts. Note, most of this is evergreen, but the ability to turn everything live—launch your new packaging throughout your market, launch your new website, sell shiny new merch—at the same time was more doable before the wild disruptions the industry has experiences since 2020.

So even if you want to switch everything live from one day to the next, a staggered rollout might be a bette routine anyway. 


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Wrapping up 

I try not to make these newsletters CODO commercials, but I feel compelled to do so in this instance. 

If your brewery is considering some sort of revamp sometime soon, be that a brand or package refresh, or a wholesale rebrand, please drop me a line to discuss how CODO can help you manage this process.

This is what we do day in and day out. 

And it’s a fun, rewarding process.