Category Changing For Cornwall

Brewing A First

Lager remains the biggest-selling beer sector and taking even a small share of the market could provide significant sales growth. In a market of foreign products, Cornish origins gave a highly positive, on-trend provenance to build on.

Although brewing lager made sound business sense, it was a radical step for the old brewery and it would demand significant changes in production, sales and marketing.

We worked closely with the Brewery team right from the start to take the lager from a concept through to its launch into bars and pubs.

It's Cornish For 'Beer!'

Our strategic planning and design teams knew that the lager would be brewed to compete with the  authentic, high quality European style beers, but wanted to position it as distinctly and definitely Cornish to fit with the Brewery’s heritage and create stand-out from the continental beers it would be competing with.

We generated a wide range of potential names but settled on Korev: it’s the Cornish language word for ‘beer’ so it fit brilliantly with the lager’s Cornish roots, but also had great salience and curiosity value.

We developed a range of packaging designs that communicated different expressions of Korev’s Cornish origins and took the concept into qualitative research. Consumers were intrigued by the idea of Cornish lager and welcomed it as something special and interesting so we knew we had a potential hit on our hands.

In the final packaging design we signalled Korev’s unique roots using an inviting beach scene and the Cornish shield. The main label shape echoed the shield and we made the brand name and Cornish Lager description prominent. We added a sense of modernity and emotion with the strapline “Cornish lager with soul”

The Result?

Korev was launched in summer 2010 with little advertising support and has become the Brewery’s second biggest selling product, behind all-conquering Tribute Ale. The original bottled lager proved so successful that within a year the Brewery launched it on draught and Korev sales are now so strong that in summer 2012 production could not keep up with demand.

Here's what Jeremy Mitchell, Marketing and Communications Director at St Austell Brewery had to say:

“Korev Cornish lager has proved an amazing addition to St Austell Brewery’s product portfolio. We knew we had an authentic, top quality brew but the Korev name and packaging developed by Bray Leino have been crucial to help to establish and position Korev in such a mature and crowded market place. Korev is the right product at the right time offering premium quality, style and strong Cornish provenance.”