Stevens Point Overhauls Look to Attract a New Demographic

When you are nearly 160-years-old, sometimes it’s hard to get those young kids to notice you.

Hoping to see a boost in sales from younger craft beer consumers, Stevens Point Brewing has streamlined its packaging.

Ditching the individualism of each style of beer, Point beers will now all have a familiar red brand on the top of each package with the Point logo. Each new bottle, can, six-pack and 12-pack now features a simple, elegant new logo on a red banner scripted with the slogan, “Celebrating Great Beer Since 1857.”

This is the first rebranding in 14 years for Point.

Marketing Manager Julie Birrenkott said that Point worked with invōk, a New York-based marketing and design agency, for six months on the rebranding.

“We feel this packaging will appeal to younger craft beer enthusiasts including Millennials,” she said. “We feel that changing a bit makes it something new and more noticeable to consumers. When you are lost in the sea of color, this packaging tends to stand out with the parchment look. It really does stand out. With 4,100 breweries now it’s getting tougher to stand out and we feel this packaging will do it for us.”

The bottles have also undergone a change, losing the traditional longneck variety for a shorter neck variety. The new bottle shape has a higher shoulder to accommodate a larger label panel. New neck labels are also larger. invōk redesigned the six-pack carriers with higher top and side panels to better keep out light.

“It took a lot of discussion on what we wanted to do, not just the look, but the bottle itself and have it into a more “craft-like” bottle,” Birrenkott said.

The bottle switch won’t be a price switch Birrenkott added although it did switch glass suppliers.

“We liked the look [of the bottles] for other breweries,” she said.

Point, which produced 40,000 barrels in 2015 and projects a 10 percent increase in 2016, also has switched to black bottle caps from the previous gold ones as well.

“We wanted to have a family look and we kept the word Point the same for consistency,” Birrenkott said. “We wanted to make sure the red band was on top of all of the packages. Every brand had its own personality. Now we have a family look.”

Point features six year-round beers along with multiple seasonals in a variety of packages and a “big beer” series.

Plans are underway for a new summer seasonal in 2016 and the brewery recently released a new Pale Ale in bottles and cans that fit into the new look.

Point S.P.A. (Session Pale Ale) is hopped exclusively with Citra.