Heineken-owned Lagunitas Brewing Company is hoping a packaging refresh, a focus on its core offerings and marketing around concerts will help the brand reclaim the mojo and irreverent spirit that the brewery was founded upon.
Lagunitas CMO Hannah Dray shared the Petaluma, California-based craft brewery’s priorities with Brewbound following its “Dogpile” meeting with wholesalers earlier this year.
“We’re really going to be focusing on driving efficiencies, driving incrementality and then also bringing back real beer drinking moments,” she said.
This starts with focusing on the brand’s core offerings, Lagunitas IPA and A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ IPA, which combined account for 67% of the company’s volume. Those brands alone will receive 60% of Lagunitas’ media investment in 2024, with a focus on the summer months, Dray said.
Part of the push behind Lagunitas IPA and A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ is a packaging refresh for both brands. The IPA redesign will roll out in April, with A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ following in the May time frame. The refresh comes 16 months after the first global packaging redesign for the brand. The quick about-face is aimed at winning back lapsed Lagunitas drinkers and hopheads who found it difficult to locate Lagunitas products following the 2022 brand refresh, which scaled back some of the “iconic elements” of the Lagunitas brand, such as the IPA logo and pinup girl Millie on the Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ packages.
“When consumers came up to the shelf, they were really struggling to find our products because of that differentiation,” Dray said, adding that those lapsed consumers “still exist” within the craft segment.
The refresh follows a year in which both offerings posted double-digit declines in off-premise retailers tracked by Circana. IPA declined -11.9% in dollars and -16% in volume, while A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’ declined -15.9% in dollars and -19.3% in volume, according to the firm. Still, IPA was the ninth best-selling craft brand overall and the top-selling West Coast IPA in Circana-tracked channels.
With the new packaging, Lagunitas calls out its home city and West Coast provenance, while also creating a badge that features its iconic dog logo and highlights its 30-year heritage, although in a scaled-back way.
For IPA, the three-letter style is front and center, with an ink splotch callback to the original packaging.
For A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin,’ Millie returns for “a bit of cheekiness” and “a bit of a wink” to reclaim lapsed drinkers, Dray said.
“We’ve very much looked at bringing to life some of what was working previously, and looking to modernize it as well,” she said.
The strategy to stabilize Lagunitas’ core includes targeting on-premise accounts with a focus on Lagunitas IPA, which Dray said is the No. 1 IPA on draft in the channel, per NIQ on-premise measurement (OPM) data.
“We’re actually bigger than that No. 2 and No. 3 craft brands on draft in total combined,” she said, referencing the Bell’s and Stone Brewing IPA brand families in NIQ-tracked on-premise channels.
The company is focusing on craft-centric accounts to ensure its IPA is on tap and offering retailers a custom, stackable mason jar.
“Where IPA is going to be made available, it should be a Lagunitas IPA that is there,” Dray said. “We very much believe, given we are the No. 1 IPA on draft in the on-premise, that we have the right to become the king of IPA. And we very much expect that to be us being made available and being served in our mason jar.”
Beyond IPA and A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’, Lagunitas is focused on Hoppy Refresher, the brand’s non-alcoholic (NA) sparkling hop water, as a “big play,” with aspirations to deliver 1 million samples this year.
Hoppy Refresher is 98% incremental to Lagunitas’ distributors, Dray said. She cited the brand’s bonafides as the No. 1 hop water with “the highest rate of distribution, the highest rate of sale and the highest rates of repeat purchase with consumers.”
According to Dray, hop water drives higher incrementality than an additional NA beer and serves as a “three-in-one proposition” for consumers as a zero calorie and carb NA offering, a mixer and “a night extender.”
Beyond hop water, Lagunitas views Beast of Both Worlds IPA (8% ABV), a double-dry-hopped IPA that features the taste profile of a New England-style IPA with West Coast clarity, as an incremental play. The brand has rolled out nationally.
The company will also back previous innovation plays aimed at appealing to new consumers, including Maximus IPA (9% ABV), which finished 2023 with dollar sales up +35% compared to the previous calendar year in NIQ data, and Island Beats IPA (5% ABV) tropical IPA.
The final piece of Lagunitas’ 2024 strategy is focused on bringing back social and beer drinking occasions, which Dray said have each declined -3%. Those plans include Lagunitas’ concert series at its Petaluma amphitheater and a continued partnership with National Public Radio’s Tiny Desk series. The latter will include a 10-stop tour across the country such as California, Illinois, New York and Texas.
Dray said the strategy becomes more important as more rationalization of craft brands at retail is “on the horizon,” including one national grocery retailer who is expecting to cut their craft SKUs by -21%, but is increasing their Lagunitas range by +16%.
“We have a very clear plan and are very focused on what we need to do this year,” she said. “It’s all about driving efficiency with our core of IPA and LSS, driving incrementality with our innovations, very focused on Hoppy Refresher and Beast of Both Worlds. And then also bringing back those real beer drinking moments with our experiential through music [programs].”