What's In a Name

Branding is a very inexact science.  There are countless books available that each purport  to tell you exactly how to zero in on your critical brand message and increase sales!  But if it were so easy, why are there so many books on the subject!  I think I personally own at least 100, and I admit I am still confused – at least that’s what my wife says.

The truth of the matter is that no one can REALLY predict what makes one product resonate with the consumer, and another fall flat (beer pun, get it!).

Having said that, at Clipper City Brewing Company we are about to make a slight change in the branding/naming of two of our beers.  McHenry beer is about to become Clipper City McHenry, and BaltoMarzHon is about to become Clipper City MarzHon (dropping the Balto.) Our hope is that this will more clearly identify these products as being part of the Clipper City brand, and consequently align them more definitively with the brand characteristics associated with Clipper City.

You don’t know what those brand characteristics are?  Well rather that read ANOTHER branding book, Clipper City is our “local” beer brand – designed to celebrate all things local to the greater Chesapeake bay region.  The beers are locally named, represent our lightest styles, and are more or less limited in distribution to the local market.  They are all award winning beers, but are conceived as being the “local” jewels that you can’t get everywhere, making them special to our region.

This is a good branding counterpoint to our Heavy Seas brand (our high gravity beer geek line) and our Oxford Organic Ales brand (wonder what that is about?) which are available over a much larger market.

At Clipper City, we enjoy having a multiple brand platform.  It allows us to brew beers that appeal to different sides of our brewing personality, and yet have the flexibility in our marketing platform to be able to give each “child” a proper home.  In some ways, you can look at the brand name as a person’s last name.  With each subsequent child, there is a certainly a family resemblance.  But ask any parent, and they will tell you each kid is different and has its own personality.

With the subtle name changes we are making with McHenry and MarzHon we are doing no more than making sure that the world knows exactly who each child belongs to, and also where to send the report card.