CORUBA BRAND EVOLUTION

MOVING IT ON

The challenge of repositioning the brand of New Zealand’s leading dark rum Coruba was no easy task but one that graphic design and branding consultants Cluster Creative understood from the outset and conquered.

A delicate operation from a design perspective, Cluster Creative revitalised the Coruba brand with a fresh illustration style, refined logotype and colour palette while staying true to the brand essence – the result was “bang on”.

“When the new design was launched, many consumers were hard pressed to discern that the label had changed overall, except to comment on vague impressions of increased warmth, openness and positivity,” Andrew Tobin, brand strategy consultant to The Rum Company (New Zealand) Limited says. “This was consistent across youthful and more mature drinkers and non-drinkers of Coruba.”

PACKAGING

“The mandate for the packaging brief was to freshen the brand, and to open the way for the brand to appeal to an early-twenties audience again. Over the past few years its audience has aged somewhat, and the dynamic RTD market has redefined how spirits are marketed to the more youthful end of the drinker spectrum.

“The delicacy of a job like redesigning Coruba’s label stemmed from the sheer weight of emotional investment that generations of Coruba drinkers have in the brand.” Mr Tobin believes the label redesign has the same staying power of traditional leading spirit brands encompassing tradition, mythology and longevity.

“With the re-design that Cluster pulled off, they have not only met the positioning needs of the brand at this point and time, they have also built in the foundations of future evolution to meet the needs of an increasingly volatile market,” he says.

FUTURE VERSATILITY

“Coruba is looking great to its intended audience, but the brand’s visual language now has the versatility to move should this situation change in the future.”

The upgrade covered all aspects of packaging for Coruba including gold-foiled self-adhesive labels, full colour multi-packs, shipper boxes, point of sale and promotional materials. A complex job to print, Cluster supervised the production of the initial print runs to achieve the highest possible reproduction standards with the three printers involved.

Cluster also provided Coruba with a brandkit, providing a complete reference for the reproduction of the Coruba brand, and continues to work with Coruba on packaging and point of sale design as required.

“[Cluster] have been an integral part in the repositioning of the Coruba brand in New Zealand … professional, committed and totally in tune with the briefs set,” Allen McCormick, General Manager of The Rum Company says.