Originally published on Kiers.com, February 2024.
One of the most challenging (and fun) exercises a marketing firm can tackle is creating a label and campaign for a new beverage. You have to consider the brand identity, requirements, label size and shape, psychology, readability, target audience, and most importantly: getting attention.
When you walk into a liquor store it is a sea of noise. Wall-to-wall boxes, bottles, and point-of-sale displays all vying for your attention. So where do you start?
With a name.
Luckily, Picaroons already had a name in mind, and it was a good one: Tag Team. Sean Dunbar, owner of Picaroons and beer-meister, wanted to revisit a previous beer that was available for a limited time: The Beast — a strong white wheat Pale Ale that paid homage to Atlantic Grand Prix Wrestling’s legendary wrestler Yvon Cormier
This left us with a flurry of possibilities, so we went straight to work.
Pen to paper: the first sketch of Tag Team after our meeting with Picaroons.
Our initial concepts focused on utilizing two of Atlantic Canada’s legends on the label instead of one. Wanting to tap into the original idea with The Beast, we decided to explore ideas that featured Yvon Cormier and well known accomplices. We quickly realized that while Yvon had partnered and won several tag team championships, it was always with different partners.
For other options, we considered other Grand Prix Wrestling legends, and we quickly landed on a crowd favourite who was not only a legend, but known for being in a tag team: The Cuban Assassin!
Throughout the process we invariably came to a crossroads: If this design succeeds, will we: a) be able to secure likeness rights; b) be able to license any and all imagery we use?
Seeking permission from wrestlers or their family is no simple (or quick) matter, and even more difficult is finding the owner of any and all photography we might want to license and adapt for our purposes. While we got a head start on the process, time was not on our side. We needed to have final artwork for the fall, and the clock was ticking.
Sometimes you need to put yourself into your work. Literally.
After much internal dialogue and brainstorming, one of our designers had an idea to use photos of his Halloween costume from previous years when he dressed as a Luchador (a Mexican freestyle wrestler that typically wears elaborate or colourful masks.) Using those photographs as reference, a comic-style design started to form using halftones and spot cyan, magenta and yellow to create a striking design to grab attention.
When we presented the designs, Sean locked on to the design and said “That’s it. That’s the one!” After taking a beat to sit on the design and solicit feedback from staff, we were given the green light.
It’s time to lay the smackdown…
Once we locked down the label design we needed to strategize on how to get the word out in the most effective way. The Kiers team huddled and threw together ideas as to how we would help Picaroons market their new double IPA. We wanted to make a grand entrance worthy of a superstar. In the grand tradition of wrestling, we wanted create a teaser to get everybody’s attention first.
The countdown begins — promotional images for the final reveal.
We could have just made a grand reveal, but we wanted to really lean into the wrestling culture and create cinematic-style motion graphics worthy of a superstar. Doing a full-blown video production shoot isn’t an effective use of time and money, so we created our our own virtual wrestling event complete with ring, bleachers and seating. We presented the concept to Picaroons — which they loved — and they gave us some feedback and ideas of how we could take it even further (which included a ring announcement voiced by our very own Creative Director, Kent).
Draft Animation Preview
Once the revised concept of the video was approved, we compiled the final rendered motion graphics and audio into a series of videos formatted for an array of uses for Picaroons’ social media and website.
Tag Team Release Video
Promotional Retro-Style Event Style Poster
The reaction to Picaroons’ release took us by surprise. We knew people would have a positive reaction to the packaging, but we didn’t realize how quickly the craft beer community would rally behind Tag Team. Untappd reviews poured in and quickly established the beer as a definite go-to for Hop-heads. One local influencer took their review to a whole new level:
One thing is for sure: the road to marketing a new product isn’t a one-and-done deal. We have more work to do to ensure the initial success of Tag Team isn’t fleeting… we need to take advantage of the momentum we fostered and elevate TAG TEAM throughout the year and beyond!