06 — Global Spirits

Global spirits brands, held true from a neck tag to a bus shelter

RoleDesigner, Black Pack Design

Years2016–2018

ClientsBrown-Forman, Edrington

MarketsAcross Africa, in English and French

Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire bottles wearing the launch neck tags — **The smallest piece**Neck tags for the Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire launch.

Brand activation across Africa for Brown-Forman and Edrington: product launches, on-trade menus, point-of-sale and trade communications. Every piece held to the exacting global standards of some of the most recognized names in spirits, across markets, languages and formats.

Tennessee Fire street banner: it takes fire to make Jack

Tennessee Fire bus shelter poster, in French: découvrez le nouveau membre de la famille Jack Daniel’s

Tennessee Fire table tent cards in French and English

Tennessee Fire official launch invitation

The Tennessee Fire launchI was the sole designer on the launch collateral for Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire in Africa, carrying the campaign graphics supplied by Brown-Forman across every piece, in English and French.

01Brief

The problem

Black Pack Design, a two-person studio in Cape Town, delivered brand activation for African markets for two of the world’s largest spirits houses: Brown-Forman, home of Jack Daniel’s, and Edrington, home of The Macallan and Highland Park. Each brand arrived with a global identity and guidelines it guards closely. The room for interpretation was narrow, and the standard was absolute.

Within that, the work had four demands. A launch had to land in every format and two languages at once. Brands from the same house had to stay unmistakably distinct. Artwork had to keep its integrity from a neck tag up to a bar fit-out or a vehicle. And the trade, the buyers and bar owners who decide what is stocked and how it is shown, had to be persuaded as carefully as the drinker.

02Solution

The solution

One launch, every format

I was the sole designer on the launch of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire in Africa. Brown-Forman supplied the campaign graphics like the fire, the backgrounds, the bottle, and I carried them across every piece of launch collateral, in English and French. Neck tags, coasters, tent cards, shelf displays, invitations, table wraps, banners and street posters.

The discipline was holding one hierarchy of bottle, flame and line at every size, so the campaign reads the same from across a street as it does in your hand.

One house, two voices

The Macallan and Highland Park belong to the same house, Edrington, and each has a character entirely its own. The Macallan is black and gold and restrained: a signature drinks menu, cards for a mixology evening, invitations. Highland Park is darker and more elemental: table stands, flyers and invitations for evenings with its brand ambassadors.

Same parent company, same studio, and each had to remain unmistakably itself.

Macallan signature drinks menu, open on a spread with the bottle

Macallan cards for a mixology session and its cocktails

MacallanThe signature drinks menu, cards for a mixology evening, and an invitation.

Highland Park acrylic table stands on a bar

Highland Park invitations with a stormy landscape

Highland Park flyers on a dark knotwork background

Highland ParkTable stands, invitations and flyers for brand ambassador evenings.

Brand integrity is held one piece at a time.

The brand at architectural scale

Some of the work left print entirely. Jack Daniel’s wrapped around the columns of a bar and along the side of a car, and The Macallan built into a display unit. At that scale a label becomes architecture, and every proportion has to survive the transition.

A bar column wrapped in Jack Daniel’s branding

A car wrapped in the Jack Daniel’s Old No. 7 label

A Jack Daniel’s column wrap in a dark bar

In the bar and on the roadJack Daniel’s column wraps and a car wrap, and a Macallan display.

Selling to the trade

Not every audience is the drinker. For the buyers and bar owners who decide what is stocked and how it is shown, I designed Brown-Forman’s product catalogue for French-speaking markets and its commercial toolkit, a guide to stocking, displaying and promoting the range. For Edrington, a book introducing its South African brand ambassadors.

Brown-Forman Catalogue de produits, covers and a spread

Catalogue spreads for Finlandia and Chambord

Commercial toolkit spread on visibility in the bar

The Brown-Forman Commercial Toolkit held in a hand

The trade booksBrown-Forman’s catalogue and commercial toolkit, and Edrington’s brand ambassadors book.

Two people, a continent

Black Pack was one person when I joined as the second. Over about a year and a half, I worked across these accounts for markets throughout Africa.

I also took the studio from print into digital, with its own website and social channels. That move brought in new clients.

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