A category in need of reinvention

  • Naming
  • Brand Identity
  • Brand Strategy
  • Packaging
  • Website
  • Photography
  • Comms

The Challenge

The cocktail bitters space has had little innovation or engaging brand development in it’s entire history. In US, the market leader had almost 80% of market share. Our client saw an opportunity to create a new brand with a superior liquid to the leading brand, and package the proposition in more engaging “clothes”. We were tasked with naming, positioning and creating the brands identity. A challenge we accepted with great excitement. This was a chance to create a brand that disrupted and engaged with a wider audience than ever before in this category. test word

The Approach

We started with creating a story. With just the quality of the liquid to start with, we reached back into the world most closely associated with bitters, the cocktail world.

We found inspiration in the 20s and 30s period when so many famous Bitters forward cocktails were created. We developed a simple idea, seek inspiration from this artistic period and interpret in our own way, positioning in this time.

The name, BITTERTALES, naturally came out of the want to tell stories through cocktails and our fascination with great storytelling of the time and how much of it was associated with cocktail and cafe culture.

From here we discovered the role of DADA in influencing Jazz, the most interesting and artistic music of the time. We sought inspiration from this connection to taste, in that the complexities of bitters is a metaphor for the melodic and dynamic sounds of jazz.

This inspired the abstracted pattern on the front of pack and the box. From here we found inspiration in Art Deco typography of the time and interpreted it into a bold and sophisticated word marque, and a simple yet subtly cocktail esque monogram.

When it came to designing and developing the website, we wanted to capture some of the playfulness the world BITTERTALES drew from it’s design world. We looked to using illustrative elements to bring a tongue in cheek approach to the product and the category. We captured a sense of play with the action of dashing cocktails with bitters. HOW DO YOU DASH? Was established as a brand engagement call, through encouraging consumers, and in particular bar tenders to show of their unique and some times wild dashing techniques. The site was animated to be interactive and always at play to catch users off guard and to help communicate the brand's story.

When it came to designing and developing the website, we wanted to capture some of the playfulness the world BITTERTALES drew from it’s design world. We looked to using illustrative elements to bring a tongue in cheek approach to the product and the category. We captured a sense of play with the action of dashing cocktails with bitters. HOW DO YOU DASH? Was established as a brand engagement call, through encouraging consumers, and in particula rbar tenders to show of their unique and some times wild dashing techniques. The site was animated to be interactive and always at play to catch users off guard and to help communicate the brands story.

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