MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Do Double Maxim’s rescuers have the bottle for success? Designers’ reaction the new look for Double Maxim is mixed.

Chris Rickaby, creative director of Different, recently chosen as “cream agency” of 2000 in North-East Publicity Association awards, feels the bottle amounts to a good job.

“Double Maxim is a heritage brand and it is important to hark back through loyal drinkers’ minds to how it was remembered,” he says.

“Yet it also acknowledges through a slightly more contemporary feel a need to attract younger drinkers.”

Kevin Neilson, design director at Robson Brown Advertising, another regional awards winner, agrees the design retains enough not to alienate its traditional market.

He also says the bottles will not look out of place alongside more youth-orientated brands.

He makes two observations, though: “The position of the label may cause visibility problems on shelf.”

And: “There is an apparent lack of any reference to Double Maxim’s original brewing location, something I believe traditional Maxim drinkers would appreciate.

“This may have been a deliberate decision by the client. But it could have given the brand a touch more regional personality and less of a generic Northern feel.”

“Samplers” at Cravens agency in Newcastle, which also won a clutch of awards at the regional event, are less enthusiastic.

They fear the general impression created might be to o trendy for brown-ale drinkers’ liking, while the bottle’s shape is like those that hold Newcastle Brown Ale.

Elmwood Design in Leeds, previously associated with Vaux, is behind the new Double Maxim design on bottles made by at Rotherham.

The Double Maxim Beer Company is based at the Business and Innovation Centre in Sunderland.