How an international drinks brand brought its new visual identity to packaging worldwide in 6 months, for every variant and in every language.
The challenge
A rebrand in a single market is already a serious project. This brand rolled out an entirely new visual identity across 26 markets at once, in 20 languages, with more than 40 flavour variants in the portfolio. Every market with its own legislation and its own printers.
Without a central partner, a rollout like this usually goes one way: every market briefs a local studio. Every studio interprets the new identity slightly differently. Templates get rebuilt instead of reused. Colours drift from country to country. And mistakes only surface once the packaging is already on shelf.
The result: a brand that looks different in every country, duplicated costs, and local brand teams spending months on correction rounds.
On top of that, the new packaging had to be on shelf by a fixed date. The rollout had 6 months, and it ran alongside ongoing production of the existing range.
The approach
How do you keep a brand identity consistent across 26 markets?
We started from a single master set: one centrally managed template per product pillar, rather than a separate design per variant or per country. Every local version, in each of the 26 markets, started from that same template.
Just as important was knowing where local adaptations could be made and where they could not. Our artwork specialists knew the limits of the design system and guarded them request by request. That gave every market the room it needed, without breaking the identity.
How do you adapt artwork to 20 languages and as many sets of regulations?
Every market has its own mandatory content: legal texts, ingredient lists, alcohol percentages, recycling marks. We integrated these per country, in the right language and compliant with local legislation. Consistently across the entire packaging range, from bottle to outer case.
Because 26 markets share 20 languages between them, some countries use the same language but not the same regulations. Every version was therefore checked separately, even where the text looked identical.
How do you handle different printers and die-lines per market?
Every local printer works with its own presses, materials and cutter guides. We translated the master artwork to the exact die-line and print specifications of each printer. The market supplied the specifications, we delivered print-ready files the printer could run with straight away.
What if no template exists yet for a pack format?
That happened in this project too. Not every template existed for every format: variants that only existed on bottle suddenly had to appear on can or in a 24-pack. We rebuilt those templates into the new pack format, technically correct and faithful to the design, rather than waiting for a new template to be produced centrally.
The impact
- The full rollout across 26 markets was completed in 6 months, an average of more than four markets per month.
- No market had to brief a studio or interpret the new identity itself.
- The new identity appears exactly the same in every country, on every substrate and in every format.
- Local brand teams gained time: fewer briefings, fewer correction rounds, fewer debates about what is and is not allowed.
- The collaboration continued after the rollout. Today we handle 1,200 artworks a year for this brand, around 100 a month.
For reasons of confidentiality we do not name this client. We are happy to share more about this project in a personal conversation.
Discover our approach to Design & Artwork, Print preparation, Packaging process management and colour management and proofing.
