BY EMILY BAER
Imagine you’re looking for a new beer to try. You scan your options, amazed and overwhelmed. Finally, something catches your eye. It’s the style of the beer, the logo and brewery, and the art on the label. Everything about that particular product matches what you’re looking for, and you’ve made your decision.
That moment is hard earned, as savvy product designers spend a lot of time thinking about how to attract customers and represent their products. It is both a science and an art.
In 2018, international marketing research company IPSOS found that 72% of consumers see product packaging as a key factor in what drives their purchases. In marketing psychology textbooks, there are countless examples of how thoughtful branding can help define and sustain businesses. Across industries, brand recognition is the number one indicator of long term success. In niche food and beverage markets, standing out from the crowd is a matter of life or death.
Maine’s craft beer scene has enjoyed a surge in interest over the last decade, and while that continues today, there has been a shift in the market. Attracting and retaining customers is slightly more challenging than it was pre-pandemic, especially with strong national and regional competition.
“Some breweries can get buried by the mass of beers that are available,” says Aaron James, Beer Manager for Damon’s Beverage in Bangor. In order to attract customers’ attention, successful breweries have to make long-term investments to create recognizable, reliable brands.
Successful packaging – or branding – relies on visual appeal, brand recognition, functionality, authenticity, and story. Since beer cans and bottles are fairly uniform, functionality is mostly taken care of. Everything else takes center stage. The label’s fonts, colors, and imagery must all serve the same goal: to build out a brand narrative.
Oftentimes, packaging is designed to match the overall vibe of a brewery. There’s a throughline with the physical space and the products that are sold within it; it all works together to tell a story. That story is as much about the customers as it is about the business. And, as with every story, it evolves over time.
“When it comes to our store, people looking for new beers often look for a can that they haven’t seen before,” says James. They may gravitate towards a brand name they recognize, but likely want something new and different from that brewery.
Orono Brewing Company stands out as an example of a Maine brand that is dynamic and experimental while also being recognizable. In large part, that’s due to Creative Director Justin Soderberg’s clean aesthetic and the consistency of his design choices. With bright colors, crisp fonts, and imagery drawn from Maine’s natural beauty, there’s a throwback feel to many of OBC’s labels. You see their cans and you see yourself having fun. Most importantly, their appealing cans are hard to miss.
Mason’s Brewing Company in Brewer has also developed remarkable brand recognition, and a legion of similarly loyal fans. Drawing on pop culture references, heavy metal music, folklore, and comic book culture, their cans are bold and illustrative. There’s an epicness to their aesthetic, something that is also reflected in the name of each new beer. Their labels feature work by Ben Bishop, an illustrator whose work is well known by comic book lovers in Maine and beyond, or New Hampshire-based artist Gary Freeman. In both instances, the artists collaborate with owner and brewer Chris Morley to develop a unique and creative vision for new products.
On the other end of the visual spectrum are breweries like Ellworth’s Fogtown Brewing Company. Their labels tend to rely on simple, artistic renditions of local landmarks, Maine iconography, and nature-inspired designs. By relying on a quirky, out of the box aesthetic that pairs vivid colors, hand drawn elements, and their signature script, they have created a brand that is nimble yet recognizable. Customers know to expect the unexpected, and they love it.
As the state’s craft-beer scene continues to grow and change, so too will the branding choices that breweries make to stand out and stay strong in rapidly evolving markets. Creativity and collaboration are at the heart of the scene, and that’s true both in terms of the product breweries put out and the way they market their beers. When it comes to beer, we have an embarrassment of riches in Maine, and, lucky for us, it’s a real feast for the eyes too.
