The Brief – Brand Modernization & Innovation
Beerlao is the iconic South-East-Asian beer brand from CARLSBERG in Laos. With a market share of about 98% and a label design from the 70s, any change / modernization can cause harm to this brand. A Brand Innovation & Modernization needed to happen subtle.
How do modernize, innovate and grow the Beerlao brand, without taking any risk?
The Idea
We looked into the regional beer market and searched for global trends. While Craft Beer in the US took over 20% of the beer market normally sold with a 20% premium to traditional Lager or Pilsner. At that time craft beer was not popular in South-East-Asia yet.
Based on these insight, we created a range of 3 different Beerlao Craft Beers, starting with a Hoppy Lager, Amber Lager and a White Lager to offer choice and a sensorial beer experience.
The design of biggest beer brands in the world are based on tradition and the use of heraldic design elements. Craft Beer broke the rules in branding and design for beer brands and created a vibrant modern unconditional new look.
We used this freedom to go bold on those Beerlao Craft Beer range as well to modernize the entire brand, image wise. We changed our working style from computer to pencil. We hand crafted patterns linking to Laos symbolic and interpreted those in a modern way.
The Result – Brand Modernization & Innovation
In the first 3 month of the launch, Beerlao Craft Beer sold 4 million bottles and with a price premium of 20% to the core SKU. For the small country like Laos a huge success!
Beerlao Craft Beer was planned to become range of beer variants with constant innovations. After the huge success with the initial 3 SKUs, we created 2 new beer types, IPA and Dark Lager which seamlessly continued the success in Laos and Thailand.
For the retail we created a gift pack with assorted Beerlao Craft Beer types for trial within a group of friends.
to follow the brand: check out their Facebook page here
Inspired? Looking to enter the premium craft space for your beer brand? Do you want to launch a stand alone new craft beer brand and need great packaging design? Are you looking to modernize or premiumize your beer brand or do you want to discuss how a portfolio approach to your beer brand can fuel a growth strategy for your brand? Get in touch here, to start a conversation today!
