Heineken Romania
Repositioning and packaging a portfolio of Romanian beers
Heineken Romania is the local arm of the global brewer and the owner of a portfolio of Romanian beer brands. Brandient has been a recurring branding partner across roughly 2016–2019, repositioning and redesigning established local beers and creating a new B2B venture brand — a multi-year engagement that played out against the rise of "craft" in the Romanian market.
The throughline across the portfolio was a single strategic conviction: a large brewer cannot credibly claim "craft" simply by changing labels. Credibility has to come from genuinely different recipes and a real shift in how the brand behaves — so each brand was given an honest, ownable territory matched to its real heritage and capabilities, rather than a borrowed craft promise. The work opened with a reading of how Romanian drinkers actually understood the category: a young, "artisanal" local scene where consumption was driven as much by status and taste-curiosity as by connoisseurship, and where local brands tend to win on anti-establishment narrative rather than on a clean promise.
Silva (2016) — Brandient repositioned Silva — a 40-year-old Transylvanian beer, Romania’s first exported beer — as an authentic, craft-quality Romanian beer and redesigned the range, naming the locally crafted variants (Mândra Românească pale ale, Blonda Desăvârșită premium lager, Neagra Legendară strong dark lager) under the line "new beer, old love." Rather than chasing a pure-craft claim it could not sustain, the brand was placed in a defensible middle territory — "Craft-Quality" — anchored on local roots, authenticity, Transylvanian heritage and taste, with an umbrella plus three product-denominator sub-brands and a heritage-forward story. Red Dot Packaging Design winner, 2017.
Gambrinus (2016–2017) — a riskier "local artisanal," vintage-spirited lane for a veteran of the portfolio: a lager old enough to be vintage and spirited enough to read young again, repositioned as the local vintage beer of the city, with a dedicated naming program for a new brewpub HoReCa concept.
Ciuc (2018–2019) — a brand audit and a strategy-led redesign of the historical brewery’s whole family, consolidating and better executing a contemporary, modernity-led direction aimed at younger drinkers — improving packaging clarity, brand storytelling and new tastes rather than changing course yet again, while protecting the visual properties that make the brand recognizable at a glance.
StockDay (2018) — Brandient created the brand for Heineken Romania’s first B2B digital trading platform (a European pilot): the name StockDay and a full identity celebrating an e-commerce, digital-design aesthetic.
Further Heineken work documented in the archives (beyond the published cases): Silva line extensions (2019), packaging/identity programs for Gambrinus and a Gambrinus BrewPub craft venture (2018), Neumarkt (2017), and Ciuc Radler (2018–2019). These are evidenced by dated deck/deliverable archives rather than written case studies.
Client:
Heineken Romania
Industry:
Food and Beverages
Project type:
Rebranding — Brand Repositioning · Brand and Portfolio Architecture · Rebranding — Brand Reconstruction · Rebranding — Brand Upgrade
Date:
2016–2019
Services:
Brand positioning, Brand Name, Narratives and Voice, Logo and Visual Identity Program, Corporate ID Program, Digital Design
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