Landor gives Cobra beer contemporary styling

LONDON - Landor is aiming to give Cobra beer a more contemporary edge by redesigning the packaging for its Cobra 5% Premium, Cobra Lower Cal and Cobra 0.0% beers.

Created by design agency Landor, which won the Cobra business in January, Cobra's new-look labels will appear on products from June, when summer drinking tends to gather momentum.

As part of the redesign, the Lower Cal and 0.0% variants will be renamed Light and Zero % respectively.

Landor is also designing new packaging for variants, as well as its draught beers font and glassware.

Will Ghali, Cobra marketing director, said: "Cobra has very strong branding, so the redesign of the packaging was an evolution rather than a revolution.

"The aim was to give our beers a more contemporary, stylish appearance and to increase the standout on shelf."

Derek Johnston, Landor's creative director, said: "The brief was fantastically simple -- to take Cobra beyond the curry house and into contemporary pubs and style bars.

"The emphasis has been on building iconic status for the Cobra brand identity on and off pack.

"The reworked logo and labels are less idiosyncratic; they now look more contemporary while maintaining an exotic Indian touch."

Cobra has a target of 20,000 new pub and bar accounts in the next two years. To help it achieve this, the company is spending £14m on an integrated marketing campaign in 2008, which will include TV advertising.

The marketing also includes Cobra's £2m sponsorship of primetime programmes on UKTV's Dave channel. The brands had previously sponsored films on ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4.