Oakham Ales has unveiled a major rebranding of its brews for 2018, with the designs based on consumer feedback.
Through social media and meet the brewer events, the Peterborough brewery has conducted extensive market research into customer perception and appreciation of its beers, including popular favourites such as JHB, Citra and Scarlet Macaw.
Using this information, the company is redesigning packaging for a more contemporary look, and will become the first brewery to incorporate tasting notes, based on client feedback, on its bottles, allowing drinkers to make an informed choice just by looking at the label.
Details of the hops used in the production of each beer will be included, as research has shown this to be a significant deciding factor in drinkers’ choice of brews, particularly among Oakham’s younger demographic.
Managing director, Adrian Posnett, said: “Customer satisfaction and feedback is absolutely pivotal to what we do at Oakham so what better way to ensure that remains so than by ensuring we are talking the same language as our customers?
“It’s a simple but effective technique — we found out the words our existing customers were already using to describe our beers and have now made that part of the look and presentation, so it will appeal to potential new drinkers in the best way possible.”
Informed choice
The words that were most commonly used by Oakham customers have now been added to bottle labels and pumpclips to give consumers as informed a choice as possible when choosing their drinks and type of beer.
Adrian added: “Our accessibility for customers and stockists is a big part of what makes Oakham so successful. We want to know how we can keep them happy, and we really take pride in the personal touch in our business relationships, so we feel this innovation is a positive and imaginative way to keep things that way.”
In addition to the enhanced tasting notes, the Oakham team, gearing up to celebrate 25 years in business in 2018, are also changing the look of some of their labels and adding the type of beer.
Adrian said: “We know people love our beers when they taste them, so we want to do all we can to entice people to choose Oakham ahead of other drinks that might be on offer.
“Having made changes to the label, we then conducted further research using the eye-tracking device from our friends at PubLab, where Oakham products were presented to consumers with other beers, and their eye movement was tracked to see how they made their choice and what attracted them.
“All of this will be used to make sure we keep Oakham in pride of place on bars and shelves, and thanks to the new tasting notes, you know when you buy an Oakham beer, it will be exactly what it says on the label.”
