Robot Food has rebranded Badger Brewery’s beers, creating a unified, illustration-led new visual identity for the Dorset-based ale-maker.
The new-look Badger bottles, offering a cohesive narrative through the beers
The agency was commissioned on the strength of its work for Vocation and Brooklyn breweries, and looked to create more relevance for the brand in what’s seen as an ageing category.
One of the main problems Robot Food looked to address was that the brewery had historically focused on promoting individual brews, such as Golden Champion and Fursty Ferret.
This was at the detriment to brand recognition, with the overarching brewery brand getting lost. Customers shopped based on a variant name and many were unaware they were shopping Badger.
Robot Food looked to make the identity more proud and prominent, with unifying brand elements across the variants to encourage trial.
While Badger already has a strong retail presence, one of the aims of the rebrand was to propel it to a category-leader status.
“The big ambition was to secure Badger’s longevity,” said Ben Brears, Robot Food’s creative director. “But to do that, and achieve the brand’s immediate commercial ambition, we had to address the visual barriers that were holding it back.
“Ultimately, we had to find out who Badger really is and what it stands for. In a category led by ‘favourite’ beers, Badger could become the favourite brand.”
The new branding extends to Badger’s pumpclips, too
Badger Beers marketing manager, Giles Mountford, said: “Badger is strongly positioned to lead the charge within the premium ale category, but to do so, we needed a bolder approach.
“Our time honoured, traditional values appeal to all. But our visual identity was holding us back from attracting a younger audience. Robot Food has helped us to adopt an exciting, contemporary approach, whilst amplifying everything we stand for.”
The new positioning was based around the concept ‘crafting character’, meaning people could more easily connect with the brand through the characters of the beers’ and the breweries’ stories behind their creation.
“Overall, we wanted to give Badger a more clearly defined reason for being: create a ‘smile in the mind’ with the characters and draw out the brand’s rich history,” said Rich Robinson, Robot Food’s senior designer.
“Nostalgia is a great tool to harness, but you need to ensure you maintain relevancy when working in a category that is traditionally shopped by an older audience.
“There was a big opportunity for Badger in this segment that hasn’t been explored before. An opportunity to close the gap between ‘traditional ale’ and ‘craft beer’ and make it more accessible for people who don’t know what a ‘Fursty Ferret’ is.”
