What of the Beer Can Battle?
My colleague Sam is correct: SpikedSeltzer is neat. (If you missed her post, just dig back a few days here on the S3 blog.) It’s cute, it’s kitschy, it’s absolutely something I’d grab at a gala and proceed to crack a self-deprecating joke before the Manly Drink Brigade does (That’s a P.R. Top Tip, folks. Get out in front of the story). But if your alcoholic beverage doesn’t have award-worthy packaging and in 2016, then get the hell off my shelf space because I can name 300 others who do. This is doubly true for beer can brands.
It would take ambition I don’t possess to pinpoint when exactly brewers really started giving a damn about design. Sometime following the advent of the Internet, every small-batch, mom-and-sodapop brewer invested, like, 80 billable hours to make sure their brands and beer cans were aluminum-clad. It’s as ingrained and essential as the hops at this point when competing for limited eyeballs on cramped shelves. The “wow” factor has lost a bit of its fizz. I know you’ve noticed, too. I’m gonna rattle off a few awesome alcoholic branding successes anyway.
Are my standards unrealistic? Has excess desensitized me? Probably yes to both. I’m not sure what a brewer would have to show to make me feel the same amazement that came with the craft beer revolution again. Perhaps my tolerance, and expectations, are rising.
