Marketing strategies for the craft brewery: stand out with P-ink's custom packaging

Consumers, on the other hand, have increasingly come to appreciate craft beers, which are an expression of the culture and tradition of an area as well as the creativity of the master brewer.

This means that people who buy craft beer are definitely looking for a good product from a quality standpoint, but they are also looking for an experience, a story a unique something that is expressed through communication.

Among the myriad of choices available today, always on the rise, the difference in being successful is made by building a true and strong brand identity, which, in the case of craft beer or drink production more generally, coincides greatly with visual identity.

Craft breweries and the importance of marketing communication

Product quality is a key element, but to attract consumers and grow, it is especially important to do good communication. In the craft beer field, with more and more competitors in the industry, a good marketing plan can make all the difference to success.

Within the marketing communications of craft breweries and soft drinks, packaging forms their "palette," where the design of elements such as labels and caps help build a strong and recognizable brand identity.

Research has shown that consumers measure 3 dimensions of a brand's authenticity:

1. Commitment to quality
2. Sincerity
3. History
   
   

This means that consumers when they buy choose the brand that is able to tell a story, to convey a message in which they feel involved.

For a craft brewer, this is a powerful asset in competing with big brands since the strengths it can rely on are precisely originality of communication-less formal and freer than the big players in the market-and sophistication of beer tastes.

Communication in this industry comes primarily through visual appeal, an aspect that craft brewers rely on heavily to stand out from the competition.

A creative name, a thoughtful branding strategy, and sought-after beer flavors are the strengths that differentiate craft breweries from the big players in the industry.

Packaging as the first tool for a brand's success

While it is true that to stand out in the marketplace, one must focus on unique brand communication that represents the company's story, the tool through which this can be told is packaging.

The visual identity of a brewery begins with the definition of packaging. In fact, packaging elements can make a beer stand out on a store shelf, bar counter, or at an event through rich, engaging design.

Packaging thus proves to be one of the best communication tools, capable of conveying brand values and attracting consumers.

In the case of beer, one can choose the can, which can be customized in colors and graphics in a multitude of ways, or the bottle whose design alone can tell so much about the brewery's history by defining distinctive and recognizable shapes.

Bottles, especially, offer a lot of flexibility in design.

All bottles have a label and cap and may also have a neck label. Each of these elements presents a unique design opportunity through which to convey one's brand identity.

Packaging customization is also an opportunity for small businesses to stand out and retain consumers who identify with the brand's values and story.

Label customization

Label customization is not only limited to the shape or printing of the logo, but also the type of paper finish can tell something of the brewery's story.

An opaque label will be perfect for a historic brewery, one with a metallic finish will convey an industrial-style atmosphere, while one with a wood effect will be suitable for breweries whose values include sustainability and nature.

Labels must accommodate all these elements to make the product visually match the quality of the product and the history of the brewery.

Bottle cap customization

Another customizable component in a beer bottle is the crown cap. This element can prove to be a powerful means of communication precisely because it is often insufficiently valued and left neutral.

Crown cap customization is a growing trend as it has proven to be a differentiating and distinguishing element for brands that want to make customization their strong and winning point.

A customized crown cap allows:

• Branding your beer: just think about the fact that every bottle must have a closure, and not taking advantage of this communication potential means missing an opportunity to connect with your customers
• Giving a consistent look to the bottle: creating a total look to the bottles, with graphic consistency between label and crown cap, means giving a strong image and enhancing the storytelling of your brand, without leaving anything to chance
• Communicate best on special occasions: an event, a holiday, a special project are all occasions when cap personalization contributes to customer engagement
  
  

Think also of the immense possibilities offered by social networks: posts with images or videos highlighting the uniqueness of a stopper; or even, posts dedicated to a particular holiday showing stoppers customized for the occasion.

All this makes a brand image richer, and improves brand positioning in the consumer's mind through original and creative communication.

Pelliconi's P-Ink boosts brand image through digital printing

Pelliconi, which has always stood alongside the most important international players in the beverage industry, has always been distinguished by an innate tendency to innovation. A tendency that has ensured that in more than 80 years of history it has always remained a leader in its target market.

Continuous listening to requests and sensitivity to new trends are just some of the characteristics that set him apart.

Given the increased demand for new customization options that are more flexible in terms of quantity and faster in delivery time, Pelliconi brought all of its experience to bear on the P-ink digital printing service.

With this new opportunity, both large players and craft breweries will be able to rely on a market leader synonymous with:

• Quality
• Reliability
• Efficiency
  
  

P-ink also gives smaller businesses the opportunity for the first time to be able to customize crown caps by taking advantage of Pelliconi's service.

Pelliconi's crown caps meet the highest quality and food safety standards, making P-Ink a must-have for all craft breweries that want quality materials and creative opportunities.

Extreme customization of crown caps

Digital printing offers new prospects for personalization, and Pelliconi's P-Ink takes this concept to the extreme.

Within the site dedicated to the service, one will have access to either a wide range of preset graphics made available, from which one can choose the one best suited to the occasion of use, or one can upload and edit one's own custom graphics.

The limitation is only creativity, since P-ink digital printing guarantees excellent performance in terms of color rendering, fidelity of printing between caps, and the ability to achieve, even on such a small surface, color gradients.

This means that you can also personalize the cap with rich, three-dimensional images, such as paintings or photos.

The opportunities do not end there, however, because you can choose to give your caps a special finish of your choice from:

• Touch effect: to give three-dimensionality for example to one's printed naming, perceptible both by touch and visually by the different play of light and shadow, one can add an embossed or debossed effect
• Matte/Gloss finish: for a play of light between glossy and matte finishes, suitable for a brewery with a young and dynamic personality
• Multiple versions of the same graphic: for those who want different effects from cap to cap even for the same graphic, there will be the possibility of varying the effects or design by inserting the names of different beers, changing color combinations, and more
• Puzzle or collectable: a way to create engagement with the consumer by creating collectible caps-inspired by TV series, music groups, famous phrases, etc. - or to caps that constitute pieces of a larger puzzle
  
  

All these customizations are finally applicable on caps with different background color, multiplying the possible combinations of colors, finish and print design.

Such a wide variety of graphic opportunities, combined with the other benefits of digital printing, provides opportunities for all beer and soft drink producers, from small to large, to stand out through unique communication.

Customizing crown caps will help to:

• Engage end consumers: by printing a particular image, offer, fun and engaging message
• Create virality on social: By inserting call-to-actions or customizing caps in original ways, you can turn customers into brand advocates who promote your product online
• Increasing sales: as mentioned, customers want to feel involved and especially identify with a brand, and cap customization is definitely one of the ways to get chosen in a store
• Measuring your success: customizing the caps for a particular campaign, perhaps by including a Qr Code to scan, can also prove to be a way to measure performance and get extra customer insights

Delivery time reduced to only 5 weeks

P-Ink digital printing, because of the ease of handling customization compared to other printing methods such as offset,  allows production and delivery times to be maintained in 5 weeks.

This means being able to order custom crown caps even close to promotional events or holidays, with more precise quantities than actual needs, without fear of them not being delivered on time.

For a craft brewery, it means cost optimization; for a large company, it means the possibility of choosing from a range of services with different characteristics that suit different needs.

Flexibility of quantities for each order

Design customization and short lead times go hand in hand with flexibility in terms of quantities per order.

By using P-Ink it will also be possible to proceed with small orders, for example for an event or holiday, and within the same order different designs can also be requested. Flexibility is maximized and the customer is always in control.

Within the site one can make all the changes and specifications, with a 3D visualization of the cap at each step so that the end result is clear.

For maximum assurance also an inspection of what is designed is carried out before starting with production, to check and report any errors and inconsistencies.

Quality and customization at your service with P-Ink by Pelliconi

Satisfaction of its customers is Pelliconi's desire, and P-Ink wants to be one more way to ensure it, allowing those who use it to bring out their brand personality even through the customization of crown caps.

Indeed, cap customization is one of the methods-along with label design-to tell the story of the beer, its personality, and its taste. Thanks to P-Ink, even small craft breweries will therefore be able to exploit the potential of personalization to build customer loyalty and engage them, through events, social campaigns, special holiday designs or contests.