A new label initiative says a lot about a company. Around the holidays, it’s not uncommon for major brand names to rearrange the images and wording on their products, and Budweiser is attempting to recapture some of its old style for a holiday-themed promotion.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently reported on this campaign, which has a vintage look that includes old-fashioned red lettering, wooden crates and labels that replicate the classic design used during the brand’s earlier days.
It’s a limited edition effort that draws from three significant years in Budweiser history: 1918, the last time it made a label before Prohibition, 1933, the first label after Prohibition, and 1976, the year that marked Budweiser’s 100th anniversary.
This initiative is especially tilted toward the holiday season and is being promoted with a special social media campaign, with the labels applied to more than a million cases. Writing for the Oregonian, John Foyston said that this could be an attempt to recapture pre-Prohibition flavor and style.
“Anheuser-Busch, with its bottomless resources and its legions of expert brewers, could make a great, burly lager if they wanted,” he writes. “Maybe some day they will and pleasantly surprise us all. In the meantime, they’re giving us a little taste of that long and often glorious history this holiday season.”
To get all of the details right when recapturing older styles, companies need to use an industrial label printer that will make everything fit the same pattern. Customers react favorably to well-implemented initiatives, especially if they know the look has been rendered accurately, and color printers are a key way to make these designs fresh and visible.