El Xitxarel·lo means the beginner in in the catalan language. Wine buffs will have zoned out already. Martí Serdà Winery is aiming to reach a different audience. The new trendy.
The new trendy is into local produce, quirky histories and sassy brand personalities.
El Xitxarel-lo’s brand design, by Spanish Albert Virgili Hill, talks to its local audience. Literally. It revives a local tradition of vintage insulting. The catalan insults were created by farmers several centuries ago and have their origins in the local vineyards. They’ve stopped being used because they’re puerile and expletives are more emotionally effective.
But naïve is funny and it’s trendy to try and preserve elements of one’s culture. So El Xitxarel-lo’s bottle is a feisty showcase of as many as can be remembered. The bottle displays 77 catalan insults, each graphically represented in accordance with its meaning in catalan. At the side of the bottle, there’s a Trompímetre – a fake alcohol-meter that records your drunk level in insults. in accordance with how much of the bottle has been drunk. In the middle of the bottle you’re “Calent” (a little bit drunk). When you reach the end of the bottle, you’re a “Buida-ampolles” (a bottle emptier).
Most brands hope to have one point of difference. Our/Vodka has a lot of them. Let’s begin with its nationality: it’s ‘the world’s first global vodka’. It is made made by local people – entrepreneurs who have launched microdistillery ventures – from local sourced ingredients and hand bottled, in cities around the world. The bottle itself is small and stubby with a crown cap. The label is deliberately spare – just black typography on a white background. The brand name changes depending on the city of origin. The first was Our/Berlin. The local partners also have the freedom to market the vodka in their own way.
The brand was begun by six Swedish members of design agency Great Works. It was initiated by Åsa Caap and co-created with Kalle Söderqvist, Mattias Nyström, Ted Persson, Ola Persson and Mårten Magnusson.
They negotiated a relationship with Pernod Ricard who treated it as a black ops project during its two year development, but loaned them an engineer from its research centre in Paris, Vincent Hoarau, who designed and built the first Our/Vodka distillery. It is purpose-built to deliver a high quality vodka and small enough to fit in the urban environments of any of the world’s cities.
“A lot of vodka brands have been fighting for the same market turf for a long time, trying to outdo each other with taller bottles, more gold, diamonds and the same overstated, luxurious design. We wanted to break those conventions and rethink what a vodka bottle could look like. It was time for a new type of premium,” said Mårten Magnusson, the brand’s art director.
Mårten had never designed anything similar before, but Our/Vodka has won him a Silver Lion in Cannes last year.
Our/Vodka and Pernod Ricard has begun to open micro distilleries in eleven cities across the US, Europe and Australia. Our/Detroit opened early this year. Our/Seattle, Our/New York, Our/Amsterdam, Our/Los Angeles & Our/London are opening during 2014. Our/Austin, Our/Miami, Our/Nashville, Our/New Orleans and Our/Melbourne will follow.
