Hi there, and welcome to the final issue of CODO's package refresh series.

In issues 1 and 2, we outlined why package refreshes are trending right now, and how they differ from brand refreshes and rebrands. 

Today, I want to explore some nitty gritty process details that will ensure you can successfully refresh your packaging.

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I’m not going to give you a step-by-step process for how to refresh your packaging here. 

This would make for a really short issue: Strategy (maybe) > define your equity > initial sketching & presentation > revisions > finalize > print > launch > profit! 

Instead, I thought it’d be useful to explore what CODO has learned after handling dozens of package refreshes over the last few years. 

So, how should you think about art direction, stakeholder involvement, visual and Brand Equity, potential landmines you could encounter along the way as well as how to launch your refreshed packaging. 

Let’s get right into it by discussing art direction.

1

Brand Strategy vs. Art Direction

Let’s return to our central thesis: Package refreshes offer a lot of upside expressly because you can (sometimes) bypass more costly and time-consuming strategy work.

Assuming you're in a position where you can skip a more thorough Strategy phase, this still leaves the important task of framing your art direction ahead of your refresh.

On Art Direction 

Art direction is the process of identifying all the visual cues and ideas that should be explored during your refresh. This can include things like typography, colors, textures, compositional considerations and overall look and feel and vibe.

A quick process note here: When CODO works through Brand Strategy, we roll art direction into the end of that doc. So after we’ve explored your positioning, audience definition, key communication pillars, brand personality, voice and Essence.

Once we've defined these foundational elements, we’re in a good place to have a fun conversation with our clients about what all of this stuff could look like.

If we’re eschewing proper Brand Strategy when handling a package refresh, then we jump straight to art direction by building and discussing mood boards.

Mood Boards ( for orienting our teams & quick prototyping )

A Mood Board is a collage that art directs a compelling idea.  

The task at hand — the actual deliverables we’re gearing up to design — will dictate what we gather and focus the boards around.

So if we’re refreshing your identity and packaging, we’ll gather lots of examples that show those sorts of things. If we’re developing custom merch, or a website or a built environment, then we’ll gather images that highlight those sorts of things. 

Mood Boards have two distinct benefits in our process. The first is that they’re a great way of getting your team’s vision out of your heads and onto paper.

Don’t tell us you want your cans to look “vintage.” That can mean the 1880s or the 1980s. Show me what vintage means to you.

Mood Boards are a phenomenal tool for orienting our teams to ensure we’re on the same page before moving into the design phase. 

The second benefit here is that they allow you to quickly prototype different aesthetic directions.

If you’re working with a creative partner that is haphazardly shepherding your project, they might jump right into design and come back in a few weeks with 5 or 6 options for you to consider. But 4 or 5 (or 6) of those concepts might not be appropriate.

So everyone’s time (and money and energy) is wasted.

Mood Boards prevent this by allowing you to “try on” a look in your head and immediately gut check it against everything you already know about your brewery’s brand.

Does this direction feel right? Yes? Then let’s explore some packaging concepts that look like this. 

This gives you an invaluable set of guard rails as you move into the design phase and is even more critical without formal Strategy to fall back on.

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Now that we’ve discussed art direction, let’s move outside of your brewery’s walls and explore how your competitive set should inform your package refresh.

(Above): Formal Brand Strategy vs. Mood Boards. Strategy frames your brewery's positioning, audience, key messaging, brand voice, personality and values. Mood Boards focus strictly on surface level look and feel.

Stay tuned for case studies on both of these projects, by the way — one is a legacy brewery rebrand and the other is how we helped one of American's oldest craft breweries launch a hard cider Brand Extension.

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2

Competitive set audit 

Note: At CODO, the competitive audit happens during the Brand Strategy and/or art direction process. But I’m breaking this point out here separately to examine it on its own. 

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One thing we want to be mindful of as we move from the Art Direction phase into the design leg of a package refresh is what your competitive set looks like.

A competitive set audit is simply taking stock of your competition to see where they fall on a variety of points.

This can include price and package formats, beer and beverage styles, overall business models (e.g. taproom focused vs. heavy off-premise push), Brand Architecture models, prevalent sales channels, and more germane to a package refresh, their packaging aesthetics and softer things like their brand voice and personality. 

How does your competition show up on shelf? And are there any clear opportunities for visual differentiation?

This process can include walking your local set, and visiting retailers like bottle shops, liquor stores, chain retail and on-premise accounts (whatever is applicable to your project and market). You’ll take lots of photos, purchase products as needed and get an overall lay of the land.

(I’m guessing you do this every time you set foot in a grocery or liquor store anyway. I certainly do. But this is a more formal process wherein you’re visiting multiple outlets to grab photos and talk to the retailers.)

On-premise usually isn’t a major consideration during a package refresh, but it never hurts to get an idea of what’s going on in this channel as well: What’s the handle lineup look like, what’s being offered / featured, what sort of POS is your competition using to support their draft program, etc.

You'll also want to work with your distributor(s) to back your field work up with more quantitative data — trends, sales numbers, depletion rates, etc. — to lend some objective data to this mix.

Once you have all this information, you’ll chart it out in a way that allows you to easily make sense of it and aid in whatever decision(s) you’re making. 

The final outcome of this process will be a document that clearly lays out all of your competition’s packaging. You’ll use this to compare package design concepts later on because it lets you see where you could, and shouldn’t, take your brand visually. 

Oh, everyone uses this color, or, no one’s really using can cartons here. Could that be an opportunity? Everything is overly-minimal, or, dear God, it’s all hazy IPAs. Hundreds of them… etc. Perhaps we introduce a lightly-fruited sour beer?

(Above): A quick look at how we share the competitive set audit during a package refresh. Here, we're looking at how our proposed packaging concepts stack up, and stand out, from the rest of your competitors.

(Sorry for the obnoxious redaction. We'll have a case study on this project for you in early 25.)

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A package refresh can be a faster and more affordable process than a thorough rebrand. However, one place you can’t shortcut is your stakeholder management. 

Let’s talk about that now. 
 

3

Process Management: You need to have conversations with the right stakeholders

We treat our package refresh kickoffs no different from our in-depth rebranding projects. When we talk with folks here, we’re still asking the same deep Brand questions, and talk with a variety of stakeholders across your business. 

This starts with your Executive Team, and extends all the way through your chain internally from production folks, front and back of house staff, marketing and sales team members and operations people. It also extends externally to distributor and key retail partners. 

Quick note here: As a general rule, we try to keep our project teams — Executive Teams, in particular — as small as possible. Any more than 5 and I start to get nervous. (And 4 is better than 5.) This isn’t me being a prima donna designer who doesn’t want to have our precious work judged by more people, but rather, a preemptive strike against decision making by committee.

We’ve covered stakeholder and process management in previous BBT issues. Here are a few resources on this topic: 

– Organizing your stakeholders ahead of a refresh [Podcast]

– Who should be involved in your brewery's rebrand [Craft Beer, Rebranded]

4 

Finish strong ( staggered rebrand launch + internal & external alignment )

Launching your package refresh will be an exciting process. This usually requires less handholding and messaging than you’d need when launching a rebrand.

That being said, a lot of what you need to manage when launching a rebrand still applies to a package refresh.

– You still need to engage your key stakeholders early on (via your ABP, plus separate meetings to get your distributors & retailers looped in and excited)

– You still need to plan ahead for production constraints (e.g. factoring in time for production — decorating cans vs. PSLs vs. sleeves, working through dead stock, etc.)

– You still need to put together a social launch campaign

– You need to make sure your retail activation is ready to go, to include updated POS, merch, tap handles, shelf talkers, floor stackers, etc. 

And finally, you’ll likely need to roll this new packaging out as a staggered launch. Revisit our guidance on this brand launch method here.

(Above): Here's a BrewBound article outlining Jai Alai's recent package refresh, including how the Monster Brewing team was thinking about Brand Equity.

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Wrapping up 

When should you plan your next refresh? 

Before 2020, I believed you should use your packaging as long as it was working—for decades, even. I believed you should only make a change when you see something bad happening (e.g. softening sales) and that ideally, your packaging would stand the test of time and become iconic. 

Unfortunately, I don’t think this will cut it today. 

Setting aside an obvious perverse incentive (oh look, the guy who owns a branding firm is telling you to continually invest in branding and packaging), I now think there’s a lot of merit to refreshing your packaging more often. 

And we’ve heard this idea directly from brewery CMOs, distributors and retailers in our project work.

Today, I think the path looks more like this: 

1. Get your Brand Strategy and core identity completely dialed in

2. Refresh your packaging on a 4 to 5 (ish) year clip based on your sales trends and shifts in the competitive landscape

3. And don’t sleep on all the other moving parts needed to build your brand — your seasonal and LTO program, continually refreshing your merch, locking in your ABP and distributor priorities, etc. 

You should consider this work iterative. 

The need to stay top of mind with your fans and other key partners like retailers and distributors — to stay relevant and exciting — will be crucial for thriving over the coming years. 

Your packaging, like your Brand itself, is a living, breathing thing. It is never truly done. It is just done for now. 

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I hope this series helped your team think about how a package refresh can help you thrive and grow and sell a whole lot of beer.

Thanks for read along. I’m glad you’re here.

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Drop me a line if you'd like to discuss your brewery's packaging.