Graphic designers Neville Portelli and Gregory Watson knew they were onto something good when they conceived ‘Hopper – the soft drink born in a brewery’ in a beer-type bottle, yet containing no alcohol.
The road has been rocky, yet the highway to success is opening out, with various organisations noting its potential as a viable alternative to help curb binge drinking.
Co-founder of The Juice Brewery with Neville Portelli, Greg Watson, spoke on the long battle to achieve brand recognition at this year’s UK Soft Drink Conference in London.
“The idea came to us in a pub in Putney when we saw a strawberry beer and thought it might be non-alcoholic, but it most definitely wasn’t,” he said. “We all know the feeling of wanting a light and refreshing soft drink, but are put off by the choice of sweet alternatives to alcohol on offer.
“So many soft drinks taste like they were made for children, so we did some research into this sector. Around 13,400 adults in the UK prefer to drink soft drinks and would like something that looks adult when poured. And that’s without counting those who like to consume some of each depending on whether they’re driving, or pregnant or just want something refreshing. So we drew up a matrix ranging from simple to complex and hard to soft and realised that this sector is just not being served adequately.
“We went to quite a few flavour houses and couldn’t initially come up with anything that was what we had in mind; that tasted right and poured like a beer. It took us eight weeks to find a soft drinks developer who could produce it.
“Finally, Symrise succeeded in achieving just what we were looking for. We then patented the names of The Juice Brewery and the new category of ‘Soft Brew’ and were in business. At least with our background in graphics and marketing, we could design our own label and come up with advertising imagery. This comprised some articulate fruit barrel iconography and the vital slogan ‘the soft drink born in a brewery’.
“We sampled it to 10,000 people over one week at the Lord Mayor’s Thames Show and it went down a storm, but we did make one error in that we omitted to collect any data from the people who liked it. We found between 25 and 40 pubs, cafes and restaurants who wanted to stock it and immediately had repeat orders, but we needed a much wider audience and we were already running out of money.
“So we went online with the message ‘Are you a clever investor?’ and luckily it worked. Tim Dewey is now our CEO and it’s working well. We’ve also been contacted by various bodies wishing to tackle the problem of binge drinking, as they can see the potential of Hopper as an attractive and great-tasting alternative to booze – ‘A new way of drinking for a new way of thinking’.
“We’re delighted with our latest advertisement, as we think it really gets across the message that this is a hard drink with a soft twist. ‘Hopper – it’s surprisingly soft’ is the tag line.
“And things are going well right now. We won the Fresh Ideas Innovation Award at this year’s IFE exhibition in London, and following this five supermarkets contacted us regarding potential listings. So who knows where we’ll be in five years’ time?”
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