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Pepsi's root beer adds a 'growl'

Trio of design firms works with Pepsi marketing to add bulldog to Mug root beer label. New look appeals to teen boys and their moms.

Pw 12622 Mug Old New Lgr

After a long design incubation, Pepsi-Cola relaunched its Mug-brand root beer with a new label last spring designed to appeal to both teen boys and to their mothers who buy soft drinks for them.

“The brand people came to me for a redesign for Mug root beer because they felt the existing design had no personality,” says Ron Udiskey, senior director of design for the Purchase, NY-based soft drink company. “We took the concept in several directions and worked with a number of design firms along the way. Eventually, one design came right to the top because it included a bulldog on the label. It was like, ‘whoa, the brand finally has a personality.’”

The redesign

Previously, the brand design was an illustration of a drink mug with foam running over the top. However, Pepsi’s marketing people identified a mid-teenaged boy as the target for Mug root beer, even though it also had to appeal to their mothers who actually buy the product.

“If we targeted directly to kids, then we’d alienate the older kids,” points out Rita Stockett, Mug marketing manager. “So we wanted to have an appeal to older kids, without turning off the younger ones. After all, the younger teens aspire to be older.”

Along the way, Culver Design developed the face of the dog that Pepsi preferred, and the company then worked with Character LLC to test the image and to develop a story behind the dog that appears on the Mug root beer Web site. However, as Stockett points out, the label’s bulldog brings an attitude to the brand that’s designed to be bold.

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