Revitalizing a brewer’s multi-channel platform

An interactive virtual world designed to bring a US brewer’s brand to life away from its taproom locations.

Challenges

Great Notion Brewing (GNB) is a brewer with too much energy to be confined to the shelves of grocery stores. The company needed a partner to bring its brand to life for a digital audience hungry for more of what they love about GNB: award-winning beer rooted in the Pacific Northwest.

Approach

Food and Beverage, and especially beer, is a hotly competitive market and differentiating purely on product offerings is tough. GNB targeted increased customer engagement to be the driver of improved customer loyalty. The company envisioned a mobile app as a vehicle to create a community for its loyal beer lovers. Instead of building a run-of-the-mill mobile app, GNB wanted a rich and interactive virtual world experience.

With renowned LA-based artist, Chad Eaton aka TIMBER!, providing the app with a distinctive, woodsman-based aesthetic, GNB wanted a design and development partner who could translate their vision or brand into a slick and functional mobile app within tight deadlines.

Windmill built GNB a virtual home for its beer lovers where they can experience the world of Great Notion, hear about and buy new beers and merchandise, and claim special offers. By solving puzzles, playing games, and “checking-in” cans and taproom visits, users earn points to unlock characters and level up in GNB’s “Timber Crew” customer program.

The finished app bridges the physical and virtual worlds as well as Great Notion taprooms and the home. It gives the customer more ways to experience the company’s brand and offers the flexibility and convenience of beer deliveries (or collection, if desired). By giving the customer so many ways to engage with Great Notion, the app drives loyalty among fans of Great Notion and its beers.

Device-agnostic experiences

Native-app-like quality delivered at speed by leveraging cross-platform app development—easy to code and maintain.

A (virtual) world of engagement

Rich engagement options: Complete your profile, select your favorite character, play games, earn points and badges, check-in cans and locations, and share images—all in-app.

Worldwide taproom

Get information about new products as soon as they are available, check drop details, save selected products in a want-list, and buy anywhere.

Impact

The app provided Great Notion with a powerful and elevated brand differentiator. With the app, Great Notion:

Created a fun and engaging virtual brand experience that resonated with its customers;
Built an engaged community of beer lovers;
Increased sales opportunities.