Spendrup’s beer branding

After decades of prohibition and strict classification of alcohol, Swedish alcohol laws have been relaxed. As you’d expect, the alcohol market in Sweden is opening up and the Swedes can now buy bottled beer with a rocket-fuel strength of 7.5 per cent alcohol by volume.

Not surprisingly, Sweden’s biggest brewery Spendrup’s is keen to cash in, without compromising the high quality name of its house brand.

‘These new super-strong beers are being drunk by young men out on the town, determined to go for it,’ says Ziggurat creative director David Wombwell. ‘No doubt that’s all very enjoyable, but it can make them unpopular with the neighbours and we had to think very carefully about associating Spendrup’s good name with the wrong image,’ he says.

Ziggurat worked with Spendrup’s to come up with a different style of house name and brew. Called Dubbel Bock, the beer is a traditional, stronger Germanic product.

‘Saying it’s double is a more premium way of signalling strength, which also allows the new brand to stand alone with only minimal corporate endorsement from Spendrup’s,’ says Wombwell.

The design eliminates the ‘usual clutter of hops, barley and beer paraphernalia’, and is differentiated from competition with a ‘bold and masculine belt device which is burnished to a tough, metallic sheen’, explains Wombwell.

The focal point is the central medallion, which communicates heritage and value without recourse to more conventional displays of quality.

‘Delicate illustrations and the like would only compromise the “dubbel trubbel” promise of strength,’ Wombwell observes.