Hopo Craft Ale
PUTTING THE HIP INTO HOPS
The brief
Broughton Ales is Scotland’s oldest micro brewery.
Hopopotamus is the company’s craft beer, aimed at Millennials in search of a more interesting IPA.
The brand is enjoying strong sales and yet concerns exist over the range design and name length.
Our task: maximise iconic assets, drive shelf standout and tidy up the design system.
Then roll this system out across the product range.
What we did
Kick off workshop and factory tour.
Tour of supermarkets and on trade stocking the product to conduct a market audit.
Interview with founders, bar staff, consumers.
Defined the brand positioning, along with what we need to keep, lose, gain.
Firecactus proprietary analysis tool to define maximum shelf and bar standout.
Define the colour palette for each product in the range, and created a consistent design system for front of pack messaging hierarchy.
Rename Hopopotamus to Hopo.
Rename all the variants in the range.
Redesigned the bar pumps.
The outcome
Extremely favourable reaction from the trade.
The brand is now readying for export to the US.
The successful rebrand achieved a coherent range design which uses an intuitive colour palette for each SKU to denote specific beer types. The design features a super impactful brand name alongside a clear messaging hierarchy.
The illustrative depiction of the mysterious Hopo takes centre stage as it was seen as a memorable differentiator for the brand. The Hopo is executed in a victorian, etched style to suggest that he is a historically, mythical creature.
Firecactus also created product photography and created key brand world assets.
“Getting it right in craft beer isn’t always straight forward. And yet Firecactus delivered us a range of exciting beers that has had the trade and our customers clamouring for more. In creating HOPO Firecactus managed to combine intelligence, wit and a sense of irreverence into the big idea, and then roll this out into the development of our range. Firecactus were a joy to work with. They have become genuine partners and we are already looking for new projects for us to collaborate on.”