the oldest Serbian Beer
Honestly! Have you ever seen beer splashing up in the shape of majestic antlers?
Probably you’re thinking we are playing around too much with AI and, generally speaking, you may be right, but this is not the case!
So, what are we talking about? Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
A few months ago, Molson Coors contacted us to develop a Culinary Identity for a major beer brand in Eastern Europe: Jelen Pivot from Serbia.
Why did they call us? I mean… Are you living under a rock?
It’s because we did a great job for Miller Genuine Draft last year; an award-winning culinary identity that gave the brand a crazy unique way to depict their beer.
THE BRIEF
So, Jelen!
Jelen is the very first beer brand in Serbia with a centenary heritage. They are having some trouble with quality perception, which is why they came to us, masters of bubbles!
Our strategic team, formed by the creative duo Stefano Crose and Ximena Pineda, began a quest under the wise supervision of the all-stars Olaf van Gerwen and Gert Jan Timmer.
The mission is clear: How can we codify Jelen’s beer in a distinctive way? How can these codes drive taste, recognizability, and at the same time bring consistency in their communication?
The process is bubbly and perfectly fluid: We go through the analysis of the brand and competitors, and we identify domains that we can further develop into creative routes. Once the creative route(s) is decided, it’s time to produce the actual shots.
But let’s not skip ahead!
THE STRATEGY
The strategic creative direction they chose is: The Antler Splash.
This direction taps into the values of the brand and gives us, the makers, the possibility to envision and create all kinds of actions and shots.
Everything starts with a generous pour that moves, sloshes, and splashes beer, creating waves, droplets, rising foam, and much more.
Yes! YEEEES! WE LIVE FOR THIS!… but why the antlers?
Jelen in Serbian means stag, and the stag is also the logo you can see on every bottle and can.
We work closely with the agency on developing this specific visual, which we believe can become a distinctive brand asset over time.
How did we make it?
If you know us, you can appreciate the fact that we do everything for real. We ran a lot of R&D, but in the end, we realized that it was more efficient in terms of time and costs to do it with CGI.
This is why we joined forces with the agency STORM to create the future antler-inspired Distinctive Brand Asset for Jelen beer.
To give it context and the right visual support, we created around it a sequence of macro, gorgeous, foamy, and bubbly close-ups, culminating in a packshot where we see a brimful glass of Jelen swinging and sloshing the beer inside it.
A total of 6 codes have been defined to create the sandbox that we call the Playbook, a tool for makers that is meant to drive consistency across channels and over a long, long time, creating distinction and recognizability.