Fritz-kola Rebrand

Robot Food has partnered with fritz-kola GmbH to give its visual identity a face lift ahead of European growth. The new identity has been evolved from the founding design, to continue to compete within the category, whilst staying true to its pioneering indie roots and inspiring start-up story.

Independently owned fritz-kola creates flavour focused highly caffeinated colas, fruity lemonades and spritzes, with a focus on sustainability through returnable glass packaging. For the brand to move to the next stage of its growth, the identity needed to evolve alongside a wider packaging refresh, to better differentiate and aid shopability within each range.

Mirco Wolf Wiegert, Founder & Managing Director of fritz-kola, comments; “In simplicity lies the power to set things in motion. We still live by that today. In a world full of changes and contradictions, growing up requires the ability to evolve without giving up your principles. It means questioning your convictions, but also preserving your core values.”

Awake. The better. Together

The founding story for the brand is an inspiring tale, of two young students taking on the ‘big boys’ of cola. It’s a story of friends who stick together, are courageous and pursue their goals against all odds.

The refresh aimed to turn heads and open eyes to help more consumers become part of the fritz-kola team. With a strong moral compass and a history of taking a firm stance against injustice, the brand has long established itself at the heart of the zeitgeist.

The new identity has been sensitively evolved to sharpen, clarify and add depth to the brand, without losing the strong connection their consumer base has with the current design and its story. Consumer testing helped to shape the direction and ensure this story remained a powerful differentiator for the brand through the updated design.

The result is a new artistic reinterpretation of the striking brand logo – a free and modern homage to fritz-kola’s founding history, it’s a symbol of entrepreneurial courage and friendship to be found wherever people come together and have a good time.

“The goal was to capture the essence of the brand story, but at the same time ensure a fresh contemporary look”, says Chris Mitchell, illustrator. Libby Goodyear, Robot Food Account Director adds “our partnership with fritz-kola and Chris Mitchell has been an extremely fun and inspiring journey, it’s been a pleasure to help create the new modern expression”.

Flavour first

Alongside the evolution of the identity, a new range segmentation strategy has been introduced to better differentiate between the fritz-kola, fritz-limo and fritz-spritz ranges. Chris Shuttleworth, Design Director at Robot Food explains “We unified fritz-kola under a black imprint to ensure there was a consistent structure and design hierarchy – making it easy to find a fritz-kola wherever you are in the world.”

Vibrant clashy colours were developed by the fritz team help dial up the taste profiles that are essential to the fritz experience. fritz-limo with its intensely fruity flavours are better differentiated and fritz-spritz dials up fun fruity illustrations on pack. Chris Shuttleworth adds; “Switching up the colours and adding secondary illustrations makes each product more distinguishable and special in its own right.”

Independent and awake

To add further depth and storytelling to the updated labels, the bottle messaging was explored to hero the passion and underdog attitude of the people behind fritz-kola – and spotlight their dedication to making a kola they always wished existed.

Silke Grell, Marketing Manager at fritz-kola states; “Our logo tells a story that only life can write. It’s a story of friendship and courage. We’ve taken another courageous step forward with this new artistic representation of our identity and can’t wait to continue our story, taking it to even more people”.

fritz-kola is available in across Europe in leading supermarkets, restaurants, bars and independent outlets.