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Category: Case Studies
December 27, 2023 / Miles Marmo
Luce Line Brewing
Luce Line Brewery is a new brand bringing craft beer and craft hard seltzer to the northern suburbs of Minneapolis. As a new entity located in a transitioning community on one of the busiest bike trails in Minnesota, the brand needed anchor as a local “meeting place” while attracting the itinerate biking community from the trail – comfortably and authentically targeting both audiences.Eel River Brewing used its knowledge and proprietary brew process to create a product that only used three clean, natural ingredients – water, flavoring, alcohol offering 5% ABV and less than 100 calories.
Services Provided:
Business Consulting
Branding
Packaging Design
Marketing
Advertising
Client:
Luce Line Brew Co.
Project:
Product Launch
B2C
Adult Beverage
Craft Beer
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Our Approach
Luce Line brewery entered the craft space during the 2020 pandemic with the hopes of being ready for the community when the world opened again. In a large warehouse, Luce Line took on the renovations during the pandemic while working on building its brand. With a blank slate, Luce Line aimed to take shape with the goal of balancing both the local community and the biking community needs and desires in mind.KEY ISSUESStarting a brewery in an over saturated market has its challenges. Add launching during a pandemic that shut down everything created a whole other set of issues. But Luce Line set sights on creating unique craft beer and craft seltzer of the highest quality and serve an inclusive audience of biking athletes, young professionals, and rooted community members. As an emerging brand, Luce Line needed to find its identity and voice to connect with their audience in a community that had never had a craft brewery before.
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Working alongside the co-founders of Luce Line brewing, Agency Squid worked to uncover their true value proposition and authentic voice. Layering that with competitor research and the needs of the cycling culture, we established the identity for the brewery, from positioning and messaging to visuals, and product naming hierarchy. We created a system flexible enough to respond to the needs as the brand evolved while specifically anchoring the brand with both locals and the transient cyclists – merging the two diverse communities together.
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HITTING THE MARKET
VISUALS
The visual style took recognizable cues from cycling culture –badging and bike parts. Mindful of the “bi” in bicycle meaning two and that we were aligning to separate audiences, the local community and thee cycling community) we used the local community visual vernacular for the color palette inspiration leading us to an “everyday” color palette that felt familiar, approachable, and relatable.
Naming and Packaging
We carried the biking theme through by naming beers and hard seltzers after trails familiar to both communities with the intent that a portion of sales would go to supporting the preservation and maintenance of those trails. We designed a system that was easy for the brewery to use across hard seltzers and craft beers. The brewery launched with on-premises pours and crowler sales, so the packaging system was designed for simple cost-effective customization by employees, with sight on application to cans for wholesale distribution as future growth.
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Results
Pandemic aside, Luce Line brewery launched to success, providing the local community a much-needed place to gather and enjoy a craft beer or craft hard seltzer while providing cyclists a pause while on the trail. Since launch, they continue to evolve the brand with sights set on distributing their products around Minnesota.
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