Last week Deschutes Brewery issued a press release revealing an overall brand refresh on its packaging (“Deschutes Brewery Doubles Down on its Brand”), starting with the new Red Chair NWPA design already on the shelves. Unsurprisingly, I have thoughts about this, as beer branding is a topic that generates discussion, but then a marketing package for the new Da Shootz! ad campaign arrived yesterday which just… blows everything up. There’s a lot to unpack, so this turned into a longer post.

First, some disclosure. In my day job, I work for a web development and marketing company and one of our clients is, in fact, Deschutes Brewery—I built the website and through work I am sometimes privy to upcoming imagery or marketing efforts. My blogging/media relationship with Deschutes is entirely separate and predates my job, and I try very hard to keep both relationships separated; anything work-related stays at work and does not show up here, and beers and marketing I receive as a blogger/writer stays out of the office. This is a critical post but does not reflect any special knowledge or insight I gained from work (nor does it reflect the job I do while I’m there).

So, you might recall that I received cans of Da Shootz and while I think the beer is good, the can design baffles me:

I have to be honest: I don’t really like the design very much. It’s a break from the brewery’s packaging brand and nothing about it says “light lager” to me; instead I think “tropical fruit punch.” It’s a baffling choice.

The can design is a huge departure from the other packaging in the year-round lineup, with no distinguishing features to neither identify the type of beer inside, nor the low-carb, low-ABV messaging.

Were I to armchair quarterback the reasoning behind the can design, my guess would be that it’s a grab at some Kona money. (Kona Brewing is one of the brands in the Craft Brew Alliance and the only one in growth right now; the imagery of Hawaii and the island/tropical lifestyle is powerful with consumers. Pete Dunlop has been writing about this for years.) Deschutes is marketing Da Shootz as a lifestyle brand to also try to capture a slice of the “light low-carb lager” market which is apparently red-hot right now, so this would make sense. But still, it’s still a puzzling design choice that looks tropical and fruity, despite the assertion that, “all flora and fauna represented are native to Deschutes’ home state of Oregon.” Maybe. But it doesn’t fit in with the rest of the brand lineup.

Then again, with some 7,000 breweries in the U.S. it could just be a bright, bold attempt to try to grab attention on the shelves. That ties into the brand refresh Deschutes is doing but we’re also seeing it with other breweries—in particular, I’d say the older breweries are the ones going in a similar direction (with labels and branding that I’m questioning). Rogue Ales, for instance, and the newer cans coming out—look at Batsquatch Hazy IPA:

Anyway, skip ahead to last week’s rebranding press release. I won’t post the full release here (you can read it on mybeerbuzz.com) but will pull some quotes.

The category is flooded now with craft brewers large and small who have embraced quirky, whimsical branding. “I realized that, in order to differentiate ourselves and grow, we needed to evolve our marketing approach, starting with the Deschutes branding and packaging,” Fish says. Rather than following the crowd, he reached back to his roots and chose a different direction: simple and bold to recapture his market and appeal to millennials who may not be familiar with Deschutes.

“If you look at the craft beer category now, it’s a sea of overwhelming visual noise,” says Simon Thorneycroft, Founder/CEO, of San Francisco‐based Perspective: Branding, the agency tapped for the rebrand. “The category is completely flooded by products and styles, all looking the same by trying so hard to look different. We saw an opportunity to create clarity at the shelf by putting the brand and style first, then layering in a bit of mystery through hidden stories.” These begin on the carriers with characters and illustrations that continue on the bottles depicting longevity, authenticity, and innovation, while also surprising and delighting consumers. “Elements of these stories start on one product, overlap and continue onto the next product on shelf,” he adds.

“For clarity, we shortened the name on packaging to just Deschutes, which gives the name a bigger, bolder and more iconic presence that equates with its heritage and legacy as a true pioneer. The new packaging design is a striking red and fresh blue, reflecting the colors of the soil and sky of Oregon, while also communicating refreshment, which is something often overlooked in most craft beer branding,” says Thorneycroft.

There is so much PRspeak here it’s like Marketing Bingo or a drinking game! But okay. Here’s a shot of what three new brand six-pack carriers will look like:

There is one element I really like about this: making the “Deschutes” wordmark bold and prominent, dropping the “Brewery” portion. That is what is going to catch the eye here, and it puts the brewery name—well known for 30 years now—front and center.

Next, I don’t hate the duotone blue strip of scenery above the wordmark… but I don’t think it’s very strong, either. It’s just small and unobtrusive enough to overlook, but it’s also not geographically accurate. And frankly, it’s just a little too close to this for my liking:

Yes, those are the Coors Light mountains.

The rest of the carriers’ design is just bland, moving away from the brands themselves to become more generic. Note how the names of the beers in the design above—Black Butte, Red Chair, Mirror Pond—are in a smaller font and subservient to the style. First thing I see is “Porter,” “NWPA,” and “Pale Ale” before noticing the proper names. With this genericization I feel like the identity is being stripped, and I don’t personally feel that these will better stand out on the shelf when sitting next to many other brands; quite the opposite.

But we have an embarrassment of riches with available beer here. Perhaps this will appeal to millennials in, say, the Midwest who aren’t familiar with Deschutes’ history or the landmarks of Central Oregon that the beers are named after. But I think it’s a mistake to divorce the branding from the locality and moving away from the original artwork attached that made these beers stand out.

For reference, here are the new designs for Black Butte Porter and Mirror Pond Pale Ale:

I could not figure out what was supposed to be on these bottles, and I’d vented about it in a Twitter conversation: “I’m still trying to figure out just WHAT it [the Black Butte label] is… my best guess is an extreme closeup of a horse eye? And I guess Mirror Pond is supposed to be a… diver, or something? I don’t understand these at all. Does the firm not know you don’t dive (or swim) in Mirror Pond? (Clearly not.) Did they see “Black Butte Ranch” and think, “Ah, a horse!” There’s nothing local or logical about these looks.”

To Deschutes’ credit, they responded and set me straight on the Mirror Pond label, to which I stand corrected: “Did you know we use divers to clean up the river? @jaredleisek will tell you. Our co-owners participate in @UDWC2014 river clean up & collect trash divers find. When we volunteer, divers start at Riverbend Park and move up & down the river. Other times, divers start up river (like McKay Park) and move down to Mirror Pond. Great video that shows it.” I did not know about the divers.

And to my theory about a horse eye on Black Butte: “And not a horse eye. It’s actually a cougar eye which as you know is native to central Oregon. We look forward to getting the packaging in your hands so you can get a better look.” For the record, I don’t think a cougar eye is any better, especially considering the fact that the local authorities here just killed a cougar for encroaching too close to human habitation.

To be fair, I can understand the reasoning and logic Deschutes is putting forth for this rebrand. I don’t agree with it, but it’s not the first time the brewery has rebranded. But in the past, the company always stayed closer to its regional roots. But it’s clear the intent here it to attempt to stand out from the thousands and thousands of competitors flooding the market.

However. All this pales in comparison to the package I got yesterday that kicks off the new ad campaign the brewery is running for Da Shootz. There’s “standing out” and then there’s… this, which is so far out there that I don’t even know what to say. I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

I have to stop right here, mid-picture dump, to say that your eyes are not deceiving you—that is indeed a parrot with muscular human arms. I don’t know why or what that means.

So… Deschutes is clearly going all-in with this Da Shootz ad campaign. Was I complaining about the can design before? I’m… not so much, now.

Some thoughts.

• There is a lot of money put into this package… in addition to a six-pack of Da Shootz beer, there is a portable media player, complete with USB charging cord, in a cardboard sleeve that plays the promo video when opened (similar to a musical greeting card), some stickers, and a custom LEGO toy set! The LEGO set is to build the parrot. It includes giant arms. I don’t know how much this cost, or how many of these kits are being sent out, but this is not cheap… the last time I got media packages this elaborate were years ago from Anheuser-Busch for Shock Top.
• It’s a good kit overall, I’m certainly posting pictures of it which of course was one of the goals, and I’m impressed with the thought that went into it. But…
• The parrot. With muscular human arms. I cannot imagine how this idea passed muster. A regular parrot? Okay sure, riffing on the tropical theme of the can (bearing in mind that parrots are not native to Oregon) but… why on earth are there arms? Arms and wings, no less? Is it supposed to be funny, or charming? I mean, I’m looking at this and I just find it deeply, extremely unsettling. If there is a target audience in mind, I am certainly not it.

Now, I’m not a marketer or a designer, and I’m willing to be wrong—maybe I’m even going overly old-man-yells-at-cloud here—but I think this is incredibly weird and off-brand for Deschutes. And this right after the messaging the company just conveyed with the rebrand PR:

[Fish] reached back to his roots and chose a different direction: simple and bold to recapture his market and appeal to millennials who may not be familiar with Deschutes.

We saw an opportunity to create clarity at the shelf by putting the brand and style first, then layering in a bit of mystery through hidden stories.

Simple, bold, clarity. It feels like there’s a disconnect somewhere.

Beer branding has to be an incredibly tricky thing to pull off successfully. I can’t help but keep thinking of Pyramid Brewing and the terrible rebrand it tried (and failed) to pull off a decade ago (for a great writeup on this and on branding, read Jeff Alworth’s post about it from 2011). The older craft brands are struggling, and any missteps could be disastrous. I know with the kind of geographic spread Deschutes has (29 states and two Canadian provinces) it has to be appealing across a wide range of demographics and regional differences. People in Iowa and Kansas have no idea what Black Butte is, or why Mirror Pond is significant. So sure, there’s an argument to be made for genericizing a brand.

But the counterargument to that is the fact that “local” is more popular than ever, and may well be the future with modern drinkers as they seek out local breweries in larger numbers. It’s a problem vexing the larger regional breweries. Deschutes in Kansas will never be “local” but I think you could make the case that in keeping more of the local artwork and sense of place on the packaging, that will appeal more than a generic look.

I’ll continue watching this unfold with interest, and I’m very curious to hear others’ reactions.