Dillon’s Prepared Cocktail — Negroni

Agency: Barry Imber
Project Type: Produced
Location: Canada
Client: Dillon’s Small Batch Distillers
Packaging Contents: Negroni Cocktail
Packaging Substrate / Material: Glass Bottle, Paperboard 4-Pack Carrier, Boxboard Carton
Printing Process: Digital on pressure sensitive label, spot matte varnish
Product launch location: Canada

Though Dillon’s has become well known for their authentic, high-quality pure spirits, Dillon’s and Insite saw an opportunity in the prepared cocktail segment to tell the same story of authenticity in real ingredients and sense of place.

Together we focused on a number of key goals for the product.

Firstly the challenge was in how to present serious cocktails in a fashion that would be flexible to be fun and easy for the beach as well as sharp and sophisticated enough to take to a dinner party.

Next, the package needed to speak to the craft and authenticity side of the cocktail and its ingredients, as well as deliver an overt feeling of ritual and timelessness.

And finally, the package needed to be a program that would allow a series of cocktails within a form that could become a recognizable silhouette for years to come.

Insite first concluded that the market of ready to drink was already saturated with low quality beverages that did not honour or respect the legacy of the classic cocktail and that cocktail drinkers were needing a serious pre-mixed alternative. Consequently, we created the more sophisticated category name of “Prepared Cocktail”.

Next, the package program was conceived to be in a small single or double serve custom logo’d bottle with crown cap so as to be more classically interactive or ritualistic than the modern screw cap — requiring a tool or tactical method to open the bottle creates anticipation, muscle memory and enjoyment of the sound.

The label needed to be suggestive of the classic era of cocktails while in keeping with Dillon’s brand and contemporary so a simple colour palette was leveraged.

Then a windowed style 4-pack was designed to hold 4 bottles and capture the desire for social sharing and convenience of carry to casual situations.

The result has been incredibly well received by audiences who quite clearly welcomed the alignment of Dillon’s core values to the prepared cocktail. Demand is far exceeding production, selling out within hours to days with each batch release.

What’s Unique?
An authentic sophisticated cocktail in an equally sophisticated package that can be used in casual settings and situations that are typically dominated by practical vessel influenced situations — canned beer or wine coolers at the beach. This is a very sophisticated alternative that’s equally easy. Furthermore the serving size of each unit combined with the 4 pack carrier creates a new social situation — of bringing cocktails to a social gathering or dinner as a gift or BYOB situation. Where typically bringing multiple bottles to make a Negroni would be seen negatively as excessive consumption, the small serving is very acceptable and welcomed.