Overview

• Integrated promotional campaign across communications, point of pour, point of sale and innovation.
• HND Visual Communications: Interactive Design
• My contributions:
  • Industry and competitor research
  • Product design
  • Graphic design and animation (in line with brand guidelines)
  • Creating physical prototypes of product and packaging
  • Product testing

Brief

Create an integrated campaign to promote Orchard Pig as the craft cider equivalent of contemporary craft beer. The campaign should work across communications, point of pour, point of sale and innovation.

Project

I decided to make Orchard Pig beermats and packaging that could be used to make sculptures whilst socialising in the pub or at home. Using links on the beermats, the user could upload their pictures to the brand’s digital resources and win competitions.

Research

After examining Orchard Pig’s current branding and previous marketing campaigns, I explored the branding of craft beers, and the challenges facing cider manufacturers. Marketing experts say that guerilla marketing is the best way to approach this market, so we decided that it was important to encourage social sharing and buzz marketing. I considered various approaches, such as creating party packs for community gardens and allotments. However these ran into issues with seasonality, which is already an issue for cider sales since it is seen as a summer drink.

I hit on the idea of encouraging pub games, which are all-season and all-weather. I considered creating branded versions of Nine Men’s Morris but decided this would probably be too expensive and bulky for many pubs. 

Concept

I decided to create items that would be available naturally in a pub setting. I created beermats and packaging that could be used as building blocks to occupy idle hands whilst friends chat.

Product testing

Naturally, my fellow students and I had to test out the product in situ. So I created mock-ups of the “buildmats” and packaging and took them to the pub. The real product would need to be made with thicker cardboard, but the concept held up (and we had fun).

Point of Sale

The campaign also had to work in-store. There would be a few of the smaller buildmats attached to the back of the bottle-necker, allowing the customer to play at home. Thanks to Waitrose at Comely Bank for letting me set this up and take photographs before opening hours.

Online integration

I also proposed allowing users to upload their images directly to the Orchard Pig social media/website and win prizes. A quirky animation introducing the user to the Orchard Pig should help get their attention:

Conclusion

I got great feedback regarding this project, as fellow designers regard it as fun and likely to raise a lot of brand awareness. Orchard Pig would be producing beermats and packaging anyway, so the extra costs would be manageable.

Big thanks to Attila Faragó for his excellent photographs. The one that isn’t so good is mine.

This was a college project for a YCN competition. No ownership of or endorsement by Orchard Pig is implied