Cassels
Cassels Brewing Co.
This was a custom website build for local craft brewery Cassels Brewing Co. It has WooCommerce online shop integration. The New Black managed the planning, website build, SEO and digital marketing, and the website design was done by Sean Bremen.
The Background
Cassels were in the process of going through a re-brand for their company and bottle labels. They went from Cassels & Sons Brewing, to Cassels Brewing Co. This involved new labels and a sleeker, edgier look for their logo and branding material. As part of the re-brand they needed a new website. The brief for the website was something clean, on-brand, that was easy to navigate, and that visually told a story. The Cassels brand has a large focus on the tap badge artwork and this needed to be incorporated into the website. They wanted something with wow factor.
Designer Sean Bremen was commissioned to take the new look labels and logo, and turn this into a website design, as well as a whole range of marketing material to promote and launch the new branding to the market. It all revolved around the tagline “The new generation, new look, same good beer”. They wanted to stick to its core values in an unconventional, dark and edgy manor that promoted their quality beer.
The Website
The website needed to be interesting, edgy, and show off the artwork. It needed to incorporate an online shop, social media, and video, and needed to really display and showcase the tap beer and bottled beer ranges. The website also needed to house information for The Brewery Bar and Restaurant. It was important that the website wasn’t just about the beer, but also told a story of who Cassels Brewing are, and the breadth of their business. When displaying the beer range, the artwork needed to be centre stage. The use of large imagery and the artwork in the background helped achieve this.
The existing online shop had been set up in Shopify on a separate domain. It was important that this was combined with the main website, on the same domain as the new website. A WooCommerce solution was implemented for the online shop. Not only does this make the user experience better for website visitors, it also makes it much easier to track online sales, as well as having benefits for SEO.
In order to reduce website admin time and keep things simple, it was important to streamline the backend management of the website and the individual beers. A solution was implemented utilising the WooCommerce integration, so that if a new beer is added or an existing one modified, it only needs to be done in one place and it automatically updates on all pages on the front end of the website.
Another feature of the website was allowing people to find a stockist of the Cassels range. A custom plugin was developed that would make looking for a local stockist easier for website visitors, while also making it easier to manage for staff in the backend of the website.
Marketing Campaign
Once the website was completed, we needed to get the word out that Cassels had a fabulous new website and a new look. It was also important to make it clear that the beer itself had not changed. So the tagline “The New Generation. New Look, Same Good Beer” was devised. Designer Sean Bremen created a series of ads using the new branding, and the dark, edgy look that really makes the brand pop. The whole campaign was digital, with the following components:
- Google Display ads
- YouTube video ads featuring three short snippets of the Cassels brand story, as well as a 15 second cinema ad that had been created
- Facebook and Instagram image ads, using a combination of static image ads as well as a carousel ad that showcased each beer in the core range
- Facebook video ads using the same videos as YouTube
- Facebook Remarketing to people who had previously visited the Cassels website
- Stuff.co.nz display and multi-tile ads.
The campaign was hugely successful and really showcased the new look to the marketplace. Online sales increased significantly throughout the campaign period, and the brewery had an influx of new retailers wanting to stock Cassels beer.
