Doolally
Client | Doolally, The First Brewhouse
Organisation | Lemon Design
My Role | Concept, Brand Positioning, Creative Strategy
How can we get millennials to switch from mass-produced beers to locally-crafted microbrews in a market dominated by brown spirits?
Background.
Seen as a premium brand for a niche demographic, in 2009, Doolally was already making the country’s finest draft beers; locally crafted using cent percent malted barley, wheat and rye. The product was thus far positioned as superior in taste, aesthetics and aroma compared to industrially brewed beers.
While the product was truly top-notch, the brand wasn’t connecting with millennials. The youth had a perception of the brand as being elite, corporate, and non-diverse. In fact, at the time, only 1 in 10 Indians between the ages of 21 and 27 had ever tasted an artisanal brew.
As the millennial purchasing power was ever increasing, the company needed to find ways to connect with this audience or risk losing their first-mover advantage in the category. To usher in a new generation, Doolally needed to change the perception of fine handcrafted beers and drive trial.
They partnered with Lemon Design to design and build out the country’s first micro-brewery experience for Indian millennials, primarily from urban centres, who are curious, adventurous, and open to exploring new flavours and experiences. So we pulled our stools up to the bar and decided to work together to serve beer messaging to millennials across a variety of relevant contexts.
This was more than a job to refresh the brand’s image; it was an opportunity to completely transform what beer drinking stood for in the minds of a generation, breaking down stereotypes and normalising it as just another way that people interact.
Business challenge.
Cultural bottleneck.
Introducing a locally-crafted alternative to mass-produced beers in a market dominated by brown spirits is both a business challenge and cultural bottleneck. Up until this point, Doolally had claimed ‘quality’ as their USP, but in the constantly-in-flux world of millennials, quality is highly subjective.
As the lead Strategist on this project, my first goal was to create cultural relevance for what Brand Doolally was about to become. Given the fact that social drinking in India is often (disapprovingly) attributed by the pre-liberalisation generation to a growing western influence, I decided to address that head-on and approached this brief with inspiration from the India’s colonial history, the East-West convergence brought about by globalisation, and the brewing culture at-large.
Opening up the brand’s aperture.
To communicate Doolally’s distinct qualities, and appeal to a generation that shares increasingly multicultural values, our strategy was to create a comprehensive brand story emphasizing this East-West confluence in the context of drinking beer. This nuance opened the brand’s aperture, allowing us to create messages based on cultural understanding.
‘Going Doolally.’
To set the story in motion, we started with a unique and strategic brand narrative set in the British East India Company. During the reign of the British in India, Deolali (the British Army transit camp, established in Maharashtra in 1861) was considered a dreaded place amongst soldiers, the only saving grace being the occasional alcohol consignments that came in from time to time.
And to lighten up the conversation as a glass of beer often does, we put beer in place of consignments, coining the word Doolally, a wordplay on ‘Deolali’ and a tongue-in-cheek nod to the British turn of phrase: going doolally, meaning ‘to lose one’s mind’. This creative subversion provided a richly evocative setting to express the brewery’s brand promise i.e., to make beers that transported our consumers to a world of the weird and the witty.
Go Doolally was an invitation to ‘screw it’ and ‘lighten up a little’. A form of release. This simple sentiment became the strategic bedrock of the brand and the basis of our campaign.
Language principles.
We started by exploring copy that resonated with Doolally and inspired them, and then translated it into a set of language principles that meant they could apply a consistent Doolally personality to every part of their brand.
Brand strategy.
By leveraging the power of over-the-top storytelling (e.g., Doolally Tales, An Illustrated History of Beer), the expression ‘Go Doolally’ became an emotional free sample of the brewery experience, seamlessly connecting product and brand.
The brand strategy for Doolally involved a multi-faceted approach, encompassing brand identity, tone of voice, spatial design, storytelling assets (e.g., The Periodic Table of Beer) and not to forget, custom-named signature beers, to create a cohesive and memorable brand experience. From this mark, we built a graphic system where each piece formed a part of the new story for Doolally.
Storybuilding.
The visual language incorporates warm colours, sharp and modern typography with a few anomalies that add character, creating an instantly recognisable English pub aesthetic. The logo design, based on a ship’s anchor coiled around the alphabet ‘D’, is a call back to the poppycock story of beer consignments coming in to ‘Deolali’ during the British reign, signifying the brand's connection to India’s past.
Packed with character.
This distinctive approach to visual storytelling means that the brand gets registered even before the message is read. They act as a kind of brand texture, improving the reach and authority of the identity. Unlike abstract patterns, these typographic textures beam with meaning, and do not compete with the logo for supremacy.
With that in mind, our spatial design for Doolally focused on creating a fully product-immersive environment, with an open layout, natural materials, and a mix of seating options – built to showcase the brewing process, educate consumers about craft beer, and offer a story-rich experience for visitors. By imbuing every aspect of the brand with an unfiltered editorial voice, we were able to build a brand packed with character.
A full-blown brewery experience.
The project didn’t just unlock a new generation of craft beer drinkers – it redefined what it meant to have a full-blown brewery experience with friends.
The brand voice was used consistently across all touchpoints, including promotional and POS materials, bringing the campaign to life across the ecosystem.
Impact.
In the post-launch phase, we also carried out a targeted survey* which clearly demonstrated that Doolally’s cultural relevance as a brand more than doubled.
By reaching the right people in the right moments, Doolally drove impact in brand metrics* across the board, from recall (71% lift compared to control group) to awareness (25% lift) to brand perception (29% lift).
*Sample size: 5,000 control and 2,700 exposed Doolally drinkers
Changing perception.
Driving trial.
The eccentric and playful tone we developed around Doolally resonated with the brand's target audience who were now more likely to associate the brand with the message—and also more likely to try out the draft beers in the future.
Smells like beer spirit.
Flash forward.
Doolally continues to be one of the most popular cultural hangs in the city of Pune (The First Brewhouse), and has since then grown on a national scale, with new outlets in Mumbai and Bengaluru – spreading and revitalizing the real-deal that the brand stands for. Apart from its flagship brews, the company also produces a range of innovative, Indian-inspired limited-edition beer recipes, incorporating local ingredients, flavours, and brewing techniques to create a truly unique product offering.
By continuously refining their product and staying true to their mission of delivering an unparalleled craft beer experience that celebrates the East-West confluence, Doolally has been able to carveout a successful niche in the existing beer market and set a new standard for microbreweries in the country.
Let’s drink to that.