Brains rebrand cask ales

Wales' biggest real ale brewers, SA Brain have announced that they are to rebrand their pumpclips, full press release below:

Welsh brewer S.A Brain and Co Ltd, famed for its much loved SA, has completed a major re-brand of its cask ales as part of a wider plan to grow sales and market share throughout the UK.

The company will showcase the new designs at the Great British Beer Festival in August, with an on trade roll-out following soon after. 

Brains began the re-brand process 12 months ago after identifying that the cask market was changing and product brand design would be even more important to future success. Richard Davies, sales and marketing director at Brains explained: “Cask ale is growing its share of the total beer market and the development of our range of cask beers is a key element of our growth strategy going forward, both within Wales and across the UK.

“Our current cask design has been in market since 2002 so, with more interest and competition in the category, we felt the time was right to modernise.”

After a pitch process, Brains recruited integrated branding and design agency Blue Marlin. Their brief: to evolve the brands, modernise the look, and create a unique design; all with the aim of engaging with new consumers and appealing to a wider demographic.

Chris Hart, creative director of Blue Marlin Bath said: “We looked at Brains’ heritage and what Welshness means today. The Welsh dragon is really important so we wanted to find a modern, contemporary way of representing it that is stylish, adaptable and ownable. What we came up with is a massive step away from the usual cask ale territory that reawakens the legend of Brains.”

And the result? A simplified and distinctive design, featuring clear product descriptors and a unique dragon’s tail, which, Davies explains: “is a design device we can own as much as Nike own their swoosh”.

Brains’ last major re-branding exercise began 10 years ago and resulted in the ‘more positive thinking’ strap line, while more recently the company successfully redesigned its keg range. This latest re-brand will be supported by national advertising in the Daily Telegraph throughout the Rugby World Cup in September. Brains range of bottles and cans will also carry the new design look and will be introduced ahead of the Christmas trading period.