Old Jock Ale
PRIDE POURED IN A PINT
The brief
Broughton Ales is Scotland’s oldest micro brewery.
Their established range of Old Jock has seen incremental growth year on year, but concerns have risen over the brand’s ability to appeal to a younger drinker as the core drinker steadily ages.
The brief was to take stock of its positioning and portfolio design system.
Then modernise the brand, maximise iconic assets, drive shelf standout and appeal to a progressively younger audience and tourists, upping the values of Scotland.
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.
Refreshed the typeface, colour palette, and created a consistent design system for front of pack messaging hierarchy.
Redrew the ‘Proud Scot’ illustration as a younger, more dynamic hero, paying close attention to historical military uniform details.
The outcome
The illustration by Tony Sigley is a depiction of Scottish pride. The central character is an homage to the brave Scottish soldiers, or ‘Jocks’, famed for their strength, courage and bravery. The character has been sensitively updated in order to respect the existing consumer and yet broaden its reach.
Additionally we created a thistle motif to dial up ‘authentic Scotland’. Used since the 12th Century it symbolises honour, fierceness and beauty.
Then we applied the Old Jock design system to the rest of the portfolio: Wee Jock and Stout Jock (the latter we renamed from Dark Dunter).
Firecactus took product photography and created key brand world assets.
“We are Scotland’s oldest microbrewer and for our range rebrand we looked high and low for the right agency who truly understood the alcohol space. Firecactus intuitively grasped the brief right from the off. They realised that we needed to respect our heritage but push the boundaries. That we needed to modernise and cut through to younger audiences without losing the older existing ones. And with the new branding and packaging they achieved this beautifully.”