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How can you brand a brewery with no apparent differentiator?

October 8, 2015Cody Fague and Isaac Arthur

CODO_No Back Story
Want to open a brewery but have no idea how to tell your story? Start by framing your concept and tackling positioning.

We were talking to a brewery-in-planning recently and heard a question we’ve never heard before: “How do we brand ourselves if we don’t have a cool backstory?” Setting aside the disheartening notion that you don’t think what you’re doing is cool (that what you’re gearing up for, what you’re investing in and will be devoting your foreseeable future toward building isn’t cool), let’s look at how you would go about naming, positioning and branding your craft brewery with no apparent differentiator.

Let’s start by backing up and ditching the belief that your story isn’t cool altogether — it’s self-effacing and only gets in the way during the branding process. Done? OK. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin by discussing your positioning.

Hammer out your overall concept and positioning

This is a good starting point even if you have a concept in mind, but if not, look toward your community to orient yourself. Is there a gap in the market? Maybe there’s no regional production brewery? No brewpub gathering spot? No one making all sour beers? Your goal shouldn’t be to be another small brewery making middle of the road beer; you should strive for complete differentiation in concept, product and story. As you’re working through this, try to answer the following questions to develop your positioning statement:

What do you do? (What type of beer do you make? What’s your concept? Why are you passionate about it?)

Who do you do it for? (Who will buy your beer? Who do you want to buy your beer?)

How are you different than your competition? (But not necessarily better)

Flesh out the rest of the story

Now that you have your overall concept nailed down, you can move on to the branding and storytelling process. People won’t buy your beer just because you’re “a regional brewery.” Aside from brewing great beer, you need to tell a compelling story that resonates with people and gets them to come back with friends and family.

If you’re still drawing a blank, think about your life experiences and what brought you to this point.

Some primers:

  • What’s your background? Why are you opening a brewery?
  • What’s the first beer you remember drinking?
  • What was the first beer you brewed? Any funny stories?
  • What’s your biggest hobby outside of beer? Any way to combine these passions?
  • Who will you be competing with and how do they tell their story? (and yes, you’ve got competition)
  • Who do you want drinking your beer? (who do you want waving your flag and evangelizing for you?)
  • Is there anything special about your hometown / brewery location?
  • What’s special about the beer you’re brewing?
  • Where do you see your brewery in five years?
  • Are you sacrificing anything to open this brewery?

Putting it all together

Somewhere along the way, you’ll uncover a strong enough idea to become your brand essence. At this point, you’re out of the woods and can move on to naming your craft brewery, developing your brand identity, packaging, responsive website and, if you have any time left over, open up shop and start brewing beer.

Other thoughts

Branding shouldn’t be an afterthought

If you’ve read this far, you probably already understand the advantage that branding can give your brewery. But if not, we should mention that branding isn’t window dressing and it shouldn’t be relegated to coming in at the end to “pretty something up.”

When handled properly, branding can unite your internal team and community behind a compelling story and drive business decisions as well as it can drive design decisions. Further, branding gives you a touchstone to check decisions against — does this fall in line with our brand essence? Does this make sense? Does this further tell our story?

This column was provided by the folks at CODO Design, a five-man branding firm based in Indianapolis, IN. They’ve spent years working with startup craft breweries on naming, branding and positioning, responsive web design, and package design. They’ve gathered their experience into a comprehensive Craft Beer Branding Guide to help startup breweries navigate the entire branding process. Check it out at www.craftbeerbrandingguide.com.

Q&A: A designer and a lawyer walk into a brewery … to discuss creating and protecting a compelling brand
Brand extensions, line extensions and cobranding: Learn how to tap into brand equity to grow your brewery’s reputation and revenue
2019 craft beer branding trends (part one of two)
How to ace your brewery rebrand

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Comments

  1. Serge Lubomudrov says

    October 10, 2015 at 6:37 pm

    Serge Lubomudrov liked this on Facebook.

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  2. Alex Aaron says

    October 10, 2015 at 6:37 pm

    Alex Aaron liked this on Facebook.

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  3. SHOARexSnyder says

    October 10, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    RT @belgianbeerday: How can you brand a brewery with no apparent differentiator? http://t.co/MbxW0Eafhm

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  4. bolstr says

    October 10, 2015 at 12:00 pm

    How can you brand a brewery with no apparent differentiator? http://t.co/QZ4dBuFUDp via @CraftBrewingBiz

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  5. Adam Holtvogt says

    October 9, 2015 at 6:22 pm

    Adam Holtvogt liked this on Facebook.

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  6. Jonathan Ayers says

    October 9, 2015 at 6:22 pm

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  7. Michael Emerson Miller says

    October 9, 2015 at 6:22 pm

    Michael Emerson Miller liked this on Facebook.

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  8. Marshall Jones says

    October 9, 2015 at 6:22 pm

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  9. Jerry Elliott says

    October 9, 2015 at 6:22 pm

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  10. belgianbeerday says

    October 9, 2015 at 1:45 pm

    How can you brand a brewery with no apparent differentiator? http://t.co/MbxW0Eafhm

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  11. Isaac Arthur says

    October 9, 2015 at 6:07 am

    Isaac Arthur liked this on Facebook.

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  12. Brent Chapman says

    October 8, 2015 at 11:15 pm

    Maybe you shouldn’t open a brewery if you can’t differentiate your product from the competition.

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    • Isaac Arthur says

      October 9, 2015 at 9:51 am

      I tend to agree, but if this were the case we wouldn’t have nearly as many breweries as we do now. How many breweries open and offer a similar lineup of pale, amber, wheat, IPA, etc.?

      Ideally, every facet of your business would be differentiated, but after your beer, it’s important to consider location, brewery and tasting room culture, local / regional competition, and the brewery’s story itself (what do you do, who do you do it for, and why?).

      We often find that people have a hard time figuring out what’s special about their brewery in planning. Beyond the “it’s my dream and I’m passionate about it,” angle, this process looks at your business from a positioning standpoint—achieving differentiation through the framing and telling of a compelling story.

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  13. Richard Hodges says

    October 8, 2015 at 9:51 pm

    Richard Hodges liked this on Facebook.

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  14. LVRGLLC says

    October 8, 2015 at 2:17 pm

    #CraftBeer #CraftBrewing #Beer #BeerBiz How can you brand a brewery with no apparent differentiator? http://t.co/b4VmPIF7nm

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  15. Pooodles says

    October 8, 2015 at 1:03 pm

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: How can you brand a brewery with no apparent differentiator? @CODODesign tells us how. http://t.co/HfS3Lseyjw

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  16. Lisa Berghaus says

    October 8, 2015 at 1:03 pm

    Check out Beau’s All Natural for an amazing brand story and brand identity – they are the epitome of their locale, their culture and their community! @BeausAllNatural

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  17. crsimp01 says

    October 8, 2015 at 12:57 pm

    How can you brand a brewery with no apparent differentiator? https://t.co/hq4vPIGgZR via @craftbrewingbiz

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  18. CODODesign says

    October 8, 2015 at 12:47 pm

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: How can you brand a brewery with no apparent differentiator? @CODODesign tells us how. http://t.co/HfS3Lseyjw

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