Relaunching Montejo

Relaunching a major beer brand may seem like a daunting process. Where do you start? What do you take from the old and more importantly what do you bring that’s new? How do you stay methodical and on course, but also ensure that your message is saying what needs to be said while also being understood by the audience in the way that you intended? The following is the step-by-step journey that TCB took when rebranding Montejo Cerveza.

The Creative Brief: The Tissue Session Means it’s About to Get Real.

When starting any rebrand your initial step is to compile what you know. You need to establish a timeline, understand your target audience, define the brand touchpoints and possibly the brand itself. All this before you even begin to think about how to launch the brand.

In this case, we knew Montejo has over 100 years of history brewing an authentic golden lager in Mexico. Now owned by Anheuser-Busch, the brand would move from Mexico to California. How would this move affect existing consumers? How will its new region accept another Mexican-beer brand? These are the important questions we would need to answer, in the weeks moving forward.

Visual Style Guide

Process: Know your timeline, live by your timeline, or else die by your timeline.

The initial pitch of ideas is really your first opportunity to get some momentum. If at first, you don’t succeed, then you just have to dig deeper. Hours of research turn into hours of idea workshops which lead to comp generating sessions and back to more research, brainstorming, and more refining. Hours turn to days and days turn into an outline of the brand and its message which is tailored perfectly for its intended audience.

During our initial rounds of creative, we established the persona and archetypes of the brand. We knew if Montejo were to make an impact, the brand would have to be bold and unique. The Rebel personality that has had enough, an unapologetic independent spirit, was decided on. A beer that encourages its consumers to live against the grain and defy convention, gives us the bold persona that is authentic and will resonate in California.

Now that the audience has taken shape and the core of the brand is defined, the question is what does that look like and sound like?

TAP HANDLE

COASTER

Establishing the brand story and launch concepts.

Now that we know the values of the brand and who we are talking to, it’s time to devise how you are going to initiate the conversation. First, we need to build our brands story–why it is here, why it is different, and why do they (our audience) need it in their lives.

We know that there are many options for beer, and every company has fixated on why theirs is the best. Some would say theirs is the coldest, theirs is the healthiest, or theirs should be enjoyed on the beach. Montejo doesn’t care about any of that–Montejo aligns with those who don’t follow the crowd, encourages its consumers to be independent and true to their self. Montejo is the beer for those who think of themselves as independent and rebellious or would like to.

Launching that concept in a captivating and memorable way in order to build product awareness and our core consumer group is the next major hurdle. Keeping in mind that, the bottom line is to build trust, demonstrate value, and launch a relationship with our new audience.

Develop your launch campaign.

Over the next several months developing ideas on how our brand will live in several diverse environments (grocery stores, bars and restaurants, arenas, television, online, and social media) and still be unified under a single message. Using bold and original influencers like tattoo and street artists mixed with out-of-the-box original displays and online content, ultimately Montejo was deployed in the same spirit as our overall campaign message. Below are the examples of how Montejo was introduced to “Defy the Ordinary.”

Deliverables:

Brand Guidelines

Logo
Brand Persona
Brand Voice
Brand Message
Tagline

Marketing timeline

Social influencers
Social media campaign
CSR initiative
Advertising
- Out-of-home
- Digital Advertising

Deployment

On-premise (bars and restaurants)
- Neon Signs
- Coasters
- Tap-handles
Off-premise ( Grocery and Convenience Stores)
- Dynamic Displays
- Small Displays
- SMT

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Relaunching Montejo