POWERS : Brand Repositioning
Powers Irish Whiskey were struggling for relevance as many other Irish whiskey brands had moved ahead of them. They were considered out-of-touch and were seen as the ‘drink for the old man at the end of the bar’. We were challenged with injecting some relevance into the famous Irish brand. James Power was a man who refused to compromise on his exacting approach to distillation. He set incredibly high standards both for himself and his whiskey. In the modern age acting with integrity and transparency is becoming increasingly more important. Using the historical traits of our founder, we developed a creative platform that allowed Powers to celebrate and embrace their traditional standards in a modern context.
The existing ‘Bold Character’ platform was too connected with the heritage of the brand to allow us to speak in a contemporary context. We were looking to our past without considering where the brand fits in the modern world.
Our platform was developed with one eye on contemporary culture and the other on our history. We have always stood for holding true to our high standards and this is even more relevant today.
DESIGN SYSTEM
The most distinctive brand asset POWERS have is the ‘Diamond P’. As the new bottle designs had focused on the diamond, we wanted to utilise this within our own design system.
Taking the diamond shape, we developed a modular system that allowed the brand to be consistent yet flexible.
The Powers Diamond determines the grid where all other brand elements sit. The number of grids required is determined by the format size. Our flexible diamond grid allows us to create visually interesting combinations containing images, copy and graphics. The diamond-collage framework starts by adding in the diamond shapes and then working in all the other elements afterwards.
Our design system stretched across the wider range of Powers products, including the launch of their cocktail range.
AMERICAN LAUNCH : As part of the brand platform launch, we developed an American content plan aimed at introducing the market to our new way of thinking. Our key locations were Austin and Philadelphia.
FAME : Powers was considered an old-fashioned brand, stuck in the past. We wanted to address this by challenging something else that is stuck in the past - toxic masculinity.
