TORONTO—Unlike its competitors in the cooler beverage category (Smirnoff Ice, Bacardi Breezers), Mike’s Hard Lemonade, launched out of Vancouver in 1996, is primarily consumed by males. So when the Toronto branch of Anthem Worldwide undertook a redesign of the brand earlier this summer, it was important that the packaging maintained a “certain edginess” and male-skewed colour palettes, according to managing director Anne Dean.

To differentiate from competitors, which tend to play up the "experience" of drinking, the  new Mike's Hard packaging plays up the beverage’s “all natural flavours” and the fact that it’s a “Canadian original.”  “We went back to the heart of what consumers knew,” Dean says.

Anthem also modified the Mike’s logo, while maintaining the “hand-scripted” look of the original. “We’re trying to personalize the brand,” Dean says. “It’s all about Mike telling you a story.”

Anthem turned the project around in 16 weeks. Chris Pfeifer, director of marketing, specialty beverages, of Mark Anthony Group Inc., claims that since Anthem's redesign, “sales for these Mike’s Hard Lemonade products at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, or LCBO, have been outpacing our competitors by a margin of 10 to 20 percent, most of which we attribute to the new packaging.”

Contact: www.anthemworldwide.com