A BEER BY ANY OTHER NAME...

Next up, we’re moving to the world of beer. Non-alcoholic brand Partake has just undergone a rebrand. The Canadian brew has ditched the motifs of its old design, which placed it firmly in the beer world. Its colour coded cans, with black and white images of raised hands at a concert and font that puts the beer type, such as IPA, front and centre, has purposefully rooted it in modern craft beer. So its new pack design is a bold departure.

Resembling much more a hard seltzer, a kombucha, or another trend-driven wellness drink, Partake has entirely ditched anything that visually links it to beer. The new pastel packs put the brand name front and centre, reducing the beer varietal to a small mention up top. According to a press release to mark the relaunch, “the new packaging design that demonstrates a visual storytelling appealing to today's multi-faceted, modern drinker who partakes in it all”. Rooting it in the wellness and lifestyle worlds, the brand is keen to visually identify itself as low calorie and a key part of active lifestyles. In fact it claims its beers are the lowest calorie, non-alcoholic craft beer on the market, at under 30 calories per can. Its pastel hues, it’s true, will now look much more at home thrown in a gym bag for a post-workout treat, than a can bearing images of a sweaty crowd raving at a concert.

Break Glass In An Emergency

Then, there comes a curious new duo. Have you ever seen a winebox that looks like this? Looking more like an emergency first aid kit or a pack of batteries than a box of rosé, this duo from House Wine and ionized alkaline water brand, Essentia has practicality at its heart. Gone are the floaty angels, pastels and images of blossom so commonly associated with rosé, replaced by something that looks like it should say ‘break glass in case of emergency’. Of course, this is no ordinary wine box, it’s a wine and water duo, for balanced summer refreshment. But it’s interesting that House Wine’s blush branding has been entirely replaced by the functional brutality of Essentia’s “9.5 pH or higher ionized alkaline water” brand world.

WHY BE SO DISTANT?

So why are brands distancing themselves from booze, and taking on the cues of non-alc categories? In the case of Weirdo, this seems more of an attempt to distance the product from a category that its target consumer has either felt is inaccessible to them at best, or unwelcoming at worst. These packaging decisions are rooted in a sense of rejecting that to which its target consumers feel they don’t belong, and welcoming them in with something that feels more comfortable and recognisable.

There’s also a sense of rebellion. No-one wants to drink what their parents drank. Brands like Turntable and Weirdo visually don’t belong with those dusty bottles Gen Z may or may not have taken a few sneaky sips from and topped back up with water, before a night out. Shhh.