Friday, March 25, 2011

Let’s Get Marketing

While I wouldn’t consider my four years in UCD studying Business and Legal Studies a complete waste of time, there are elements that I look back on and can’t help but feel like I could have done without them. My marketing course was one such element.

Firstly, I can’t remember if it was a half year course or a full year course. I can’t remember what was covered on the exam, I can’t remember sitting the exam. I can’t really remember much about our lecturer, and I can’t really remember what form the classes took.

What I want you to take from this introduction isn’t that our homebrew beer has destroyed my memory, its that any marketing skills that I have amassed over the years are more likely to have been taught to me by Don Draper than UCD. And when Don talks, I listen.

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Right from the get go we decided that we would do things semi-seriously when it came to brewing our beer. We wouldn’t buy the top of the range equipment, but we would buy equipment that we would be happy to use for a few years at least and we stared a blog, but refrained from buying dogontheroad.com (just about)

So when it came to the matter of the logo, we wanted to pick one that would be distinct, recognisable and somewhat cool; something that we could proudly stand over, and would do us for a couple of months.

So channelling my inner Don, I got good and wasted one night, and by complete fluke, managed to pull the logo together. Logo_png

And I have to admit, I felt pretty good about myself.

The dog looked playful, the gritty texture looked a little like tarmac, and the words Dog on the Road really stood out. I sent a copy off to Dónall and spent the next few days thinking about how I was quite possibly the worlds best graphic designer. I had guaranteed our inevitable commercial success by coming up with a legendary piece of beer branding. It looked good on the bottles and gave us room to add relevant details when needed. We had started to build the brand!

But I knew it could be better, and clearly I was right. Below is the current Dog on the Road label for our World Famous Ruff Strong Belgian Ale.

dog on the road2_small_border

Now that’s a god-damn label! Designed by the very talented Will Sharkey, the new label really shines. The dog (somehow) looks even more playful, the colour scheme is epic and I absolutely love the ruffled paper effect on the red circle; and it looks amazing on the bottles

11 - Labelled 2

So a very big thank you to Will (who has been paid in beer) and watch this space for future beer bottle labels from Dog on the Road Brewing (well, Sharkey really, but we haven’t asked him yet.) And for anyone considering doing a marketing course in UCD…. don’t, just watch Mad Men.

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