Custom beer platform concept
The custom beer platform is a B2B serviceaimed at businesses that want to enrich their customers' experiences with a customized beer label that they can use to promote themselves. The idea came up by analyzing existing custom beer services in Finland, and also by looking across existing custom design platforms for print corporate identity. The service concept was created by Tais Di Sciascio together with CoolHead Brew with the intention of generating demand for the craft brewing industry in Finland.
We used service design principles and tools to support our service development process. The main problem defined was that the huge competition inside the craft brewing industry and the strict alcohol policy were decreasing the demand for businesses in Finland. To cope with this, we started to look for potential customers across other industries with different 'forms' of offering but the same emotional value proposition that the craft brewing industry offers to its end-customers (for example, entertainment, relaxation, and appreciation). The goal of the research was to understand these potential customers and gather insights on how beer could add value to them and, as well, to their end-customers. The analysis showed that, even though most of these customers did not have permission to sell alcohol, they could use beer as a way to provide a better experience to their end-customers and, in the same way, to promote their business.
In parallel with the customer research, we also discovered that existing craft beer companies were providing a custom beer service to be able to compete in the market. With this service, customers could order an amount of beer (800–1800 liters) labeled with their own brand. They could choose from any type of beer in production and have it delivered with a customized label. The design of the label could be done by an external designer or by the brewery designer, with additional fees. This existing service was used mostly for stylish restaurants or corporate events. However, the other potential customers revealed no appreciation for using it because of the following reasons:
_ Hiring a designer is too expensive and takes effort.
_ Using the brewery’s design implicates extra costs.
_ The label has to be sent to the brewery to ensure that it has been designed under the regulations of the alcohol labeling policy.
_ Printing implicates extra costs.
_ The quantity of beer per order (800–1800 liters) is too high for many of the potential customers to store.
The Custom beer platform concept was designed based on the best proposition to reach our goal and the customer's needs. A new business model was developed to ensure that a smaller amount of beer is available for these customers without interfering with the flow of the existing brewing business. To make the service concept tangible, a paper prototype was created. The service enables customers to efficiently customize their beer's labels without having design knowledge, to clearly know the total cost of the service, and to automate the custom beer service process from order to delivery. We aim to reach restaurants, corporate events, spas, hair salons, festivals, concert halls, and so on. The service can also be expanded to all brewing companies.
