Don't judge a can by its label
Most brands obsess over what the final product looks like before getting it out in the world. We ended up doing the opposite. Even though we knew the trial production cans weren't finished, we made them available anyway and jumped at opportunities to showcase them. Not because we're impatient, but because we wanted real-world feedback on our designs and more importantly, the taste.
Our trial cans are labelled - temporary outfits whilst we're building our final designs in the background. They're not a million miles away, but we wanted to understand what people thought of the products before getting wedded to final designs.
Here's what shaped the cans and what's driving our next designs.
No neutral tones or pastels, just punchy and unmistakeable colourways designed to stand out on shelves and in fridges.
Slimline 250ml or 300ml have been all the rave in the ready-to-drink (RTD) market since White Claw launched in the UK in 2020. But we wanted to do it differently. Chunky 330ml craft-style cans. Why? They feel substantial. They've got weight in your hand, presence on the shelf and appeal across the board. More beer, less breezer.
Despite keeping our ingredients simple and natural, we didn't want to hide behind minimalism from a design perspective. We made sure it was obvious you were drinking Wombat. So that meant name-first design with loud colours and squares into the design.
We always planned to move to fully-printed cans, and we are. But we weren’t going to wait until everything was finished and perfect before putting liquid in hands. Getting people to taste it, react to it, and give us brutally honest feedback has helped us dial our designs in. Fully printed cans are coming.
Every can features squares. And you're going to start to see this across our branding. It's a nod to our favourite marsupials geometric output. Yeah it's probably a bit odd, but it perfectly represents what we're building: drinks that don't conform to the norm and branding that doesn't either.
We're still working away in the background to master the shelf appeal - so keep your eyes peeled for more branding updates coming soon.
