Here’s a fun little Friday afternoon treat for you. A little test to see how well your glorious design work is actually working for you.
Is it lifting its weight? Is it doing its job? Is it enticing drinkers through the door or making them pick up that bottle or can?
Here’s what I want you to do.
Grab one of your cans. Grab one of your bottles. Confidently stride out into the street, grab a few lovely unsuspecting humans, and ask them:
“If I showed you this can or bottle, what does this tell you about the brewery that made it?”
Now, hopefully, the first thing they’ll do is read the front and go, “Okay, this is a beer, it’s this style, and it’s this percentage.”
If they can’t even tell that from your can or bottle, we’ve got problems. Stop reading this and drop me an email immediately because we need to fix that.
But beyond the basics, this is where it gets interesting.
You want to hear what kind of personality they pick up. What style they think it has. What immediate assumptions they make about your brewery just from looking at the packaging.
Do they think it feels playful? Premium? Traditional? Loud? Local? Experimental? Old school? Modern? A bit weird? A bit safe?
Listen very carefully.
Because the big question is this:
Does what they say actually line up with where you want your brewery to be?
If they say, “This feels energetic, fun, playful, and exciting,” and that is exactly what you are aiming for, phenomenal. Your design is doing its job.
If they say, “This feels like an older, more traditional brand that’s been around for years,” and that is what you want to communicate, also brilliant.
But if they say something completely different from what you intended, then my friends, we have a little issue.
Because what you are testing here is simple:
Is your design signalling who your brewery actually is?
And if it is not, that is when you need to sit down, look at the design, and ask whether it is really doing enough heavy lifting.
Is it signposting the right things? Is it giving people the right impression? Is it helping your audience understand what kind of brewery you are before they even taste the beer?
And maybe, before all of that, you need to ask an even bigger question:
Do you actually know what you want your packaging to communicate?
So take five minutes today. Gather the team. Grab a beer if required. And write down what you want people to think, feel, and understand when they see your cans, bottles, clips, or lenses.
Then go back and ask:
Is the design actually doing that?
If not, it might be time for a tidy up.
