Coming out of the pandemic, many brands in the craft beer industry are trying to figure out the correct formula to recapture the positive growth numbers that only a few years ago were almost a foregone conclusion. Even though the industry finished 2021 up 8% in 2021, that still didn’t match the painful drop off in 2020 when the industry logged its first down year in decades ending down 9%.
Faced with an increasingly competitive environment filled with new products (seltzers, canned cocktails, and other innovations), one brand might have figured out the correct way forward, Lagunitas Brewing Company. Before you yell too loud, yes, technically, Lagunitas is no longer a craft brewer due to Heineken buying the company in 2017. But that doesn’t mean that its recent moves should be ignored.
Their recently announced brand refresh is just the latest step in a process that began in 2020. That was when their new CEO Dennis Peek took over and decided they needed to step back, take a long, hard look at themselves, and make some needed changes. The first thing that happened was they discontinued packages that weren’t moving and streamlined their portfolio.
Lagunitas Disorderly Teahouse Varietea pack.
Seeking to tap into the Beyond Beer category, they decided to avoid the over-saturated seltzer market. Instead, they launched Disorderly Teahouse at the start of this summer. By setting their sights on the red hot alcoholic tea-based drink segment, they hope to catch a growing wave instead of one flattening out.
But, by doing the first complete refresh on their packaging in the company’s history, they are hoping to excite their existing fans and capture new ones.
“We realized that our look was scattered and inconsistent with no cohesive look across the portfolio; it looked a bit like a yard sale,” said Paige Guzman, CMO of Lagunitas. “We have seen the craft category getting pinched for space, and we realized that we needed to have better consistency, visibility, and connection to our master brand.”
Paige Guzman, CMO at Lagunitas.
Working in-house, and with the larger Heineken team in Amsterdam, the team at Lagunitas examined everything about their existing packaging. Much of which was created over the years by their founder Tony Magee at a local Kinkos before their purchase. The cut and paste look that for years defined the brand looked “tired and a bit like Windows 95,” according to surveys they took with 10,000 craft beer consumers. One thing that the company knew they needed to keep was the eponymous dog that graced the label of many of their packages. It was something that “defined the company to our consumers and was ingrained in our DNA.”
Through conversations with their focus groups, Lagunitas realized that their original dog, while integral to their identity, had an issue. It looked sad.
“We had consumers tell us that they liked him, but he looked like he was sad or maybe a bit abused,” says Guzman. “That’s the last thing we would have thought, we were just so used to seeing him in-house, but once we stepped back, we saw that he was a bit downtrodden.”
Their solution was to tweak the hound to look happier and feature him predominantly across all of their new packages. The dog is their moniker and the image they hope consumers will recognize instantly as they scan the shelves for products. They will also have the ABV and flavor profile called out on every package, something that their distributors told them consumers are looking for these days when shopping.
Featuring bright colors and clear messaging, their new look flows across all outer packaging, can and bottle labels, single serve, and even tap handles. The idea is to create a universal look for all. In doing so, the brand hopes to convey its quality and high standards.
The first batch of their new packaging will start hitting the market in early October with a plan to have everything swapped over by the end of the year. That’s when they will change their website artwork and POS over too.
The brand refresh extends to Lagunitas’s successful non-alch Hoppy Refresher brand which will be … [+]
While this is happening, the brand will be rolling out several new products. The first will be an extension of their successful non-alcoholic product Hoppy Refresher. New flavors, cans, and a variety pack will drop in early December. Then in March of 2023, they will roll out their Island Beats IPA nationwide after a test run in California and Chicago. A sessionable IPA, it is designed to bring new drinkers, “younger and female consumers” into the Lagunitas fold.
Island Beats from Lagunitas will be released nationwide during the first part of 2023.
All of these moves aim to restore growth to Lagunitas, a brand distributed in 48 countries but has seen a decline in output from 1 million barrels in 2018 to 900,000 in 2021. Only time will tell if these moves pay off, but Lagunitas might be showing others the way forward by leaning forward.
“For us, making products for a broader addressable consumer base is important. Craft beer is struggling. It’s no secret that Lagunitas has taken its licks,” says Guzman. “So, I think we are building on the successes of the past, but having our eyes very open on growth for the future. And that is building more products for more consumers to enjoy and let them know that we have something for everyone.”