Moosehead is Rebranding, Here’s Why
SAINT JOHN–If you happen to cool down this summer with a Moosehead brew, you will notice something different about the iconic Maritime beer. Whatever brand of Moosehead you prefer, the labels and logos will be different.
After five years, Moosehead has decided to rebrand. The iconic moose is going back to the 80s look it became famous for but with a modern flair. The new-look bottles and cans will be on shelves before Canada Day.
“We very much went back to what people love; the traditional label from the 1980s,” said Karen Cousins, the director of marketing for Moosehead Breweries. “So, we have our colors back. We have green, white, gold, and red.”
“Our moose illustrations in the past have been drawn… We still follow the exact same process where we have an artist sketching a moose, but then that moose morphs into what we call a more modern illustration, where there is no line drawing at all.”
Each different brand of Moosehead, such as Moosehead Lager, Moosehead Light, and Moosehead Radler, will all have its own unique look. Cousins says the different beers lost their personality when everything had a uniform look.
“Having that consistent look was somewhat of a design trend,” she said. “However, we’ve learned that every beer is a reflection, it connects to the consumer. A person chooses that beer because they see it as a reflection of how they live their lives and what that brand stands for. So, we felt we lost a little bit of the magic of each brand by making them all the same.”
“So, that would be four brands [changing] in one year, which is the first time we’ve ever done that amount of packaging work in one particular season. So, those are the four brands that now are completely redesigned.”
On the surface, changing a logo may seem like a simple decision. But the exact opposite is true. One logo change means having to redesign every box, every can, every beer label, plus all the merchandising and advertisements.
So, to change four brands at once is a massive undertaking. Moosehead is also changing its square-shaped label back to an oval. That simple shape shift meant having to bring in a technician to the plant.
“It’s a massive undertaking, especially because of the amount of skews there are across the country,” said Cousins. “Every carton, every bottle label, every brand, has many different consumable pieces. So, whenever you’re changing Moosehead lager, which is our biggest brand, typically, in one year, you’ll only change that.”
“It’s close to almost 100 consumables we had to change. We have a technician that just arrived from Germany today to put the bottles on the line. You have to change over machinery when you change the shape of your label.”
The brand redesigns weren’t done in a vacuum, of course. Moosehead prepared market research to find out what people liked or didn’t like about the beers’ look.
“A lot of our Mooseheads fans had comments of still loving the traditional older design,” said Cousins. “We then made the decision that this will be more than an evolution. This will be a bigger design project than we originally expected.”
Cousins and the Moosehead team had other reasons to handle this change with care. Derek Oland, the current executive chairman of Moosehead Breweries, happened to design the popular 80s moose image.
On top of that, it’s always risky for an historic company to do a redesign. Moosehead Breweries was founded in 1867. Consumers come to expect certain attributes from their favourite brands. If a company changes those attributes, even slightly, it can cause pushback. People who were around in the mid-80s may remember the marketing disaster that was “New” Coke.
“It’s not easy. You have to stick your neck out, to be honest,” said Cousins. “I also am dealing with a family-owned company. And Derek Oland, our current chairman and owner, he’s our fifth generation. He was the one that designed the original moose. So, I had to work closely with him, obviously. And to be honest, he loves his original moose.”
“It’s always going to be a risk. We do research studies where we test the new design to see if it scores better than the old design, what people like or dislike, and then we make changes based on that feedback. So that was part of our process. But in the end, it really is art and you’re going to have to make decisions that you just don’t know if it’s going to be accepted or if it’s going to be liked.”
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].