Silva
New beer, old love — turning 40 years of heritage into a craft-quality credential
Silva is a heritage beer born in Transylvania more than forty years ago — one of Romania’s most iconic local brands and, notably, the first Romanian beer ever exported. As the star local name in Heineken Romania’s portfolio, it carried deep emotional equity. But the market beneath it was moving: Romanian drinkers were turning toward authentic, craft-quality, local beer and away from generic industrial lager. Silva had the one thing the new craft challengers had to manufacture from scratch — genuine heritage — but it needed to reposition and redesign to turn that heritage into a credible claim on the craft-quality territory. Heineken Romania engaged Brandient to lead the repositioning and the new range.
The strategic insight was that Silva did not need to become something else; it needed to make its authenticity legible in a category where authenticity is the whole currency. Its forty years and its Transylvanian roots were not nostalgia to be preserved under glass — they were exactly the credential a craft-quality brand is built on. So Brandient repositioned Silva as an authentic Romanian craft-quality beer, reframing heritage as proof of quality rather than a fond memory.
The strategy took shape as a coherent premium range, each beer named to carry the story: a Romanian Pale Ale, Mândră Românească; a Premium Blonde Lager, Blondă Desăvârșită; and a Strong Dark Lager, Neagră Legendară — locally crafted beers of superior quality, each name speaking of Romanian pride and mastery. The packaging made the shift visible, moving decisively away from the look of an industrial lager toward the craft of Transylvania: a nod to craftsmanship, a celebration of local nature, the character of a beer made rather than manufactured.
The whole idea resolved into a single line that held both halves of the promise at once — "New beer, old love": new enough to earn a place in the craft conversation, loved long enough to be believed. The work won a Red Dot in 2017. More lasting than the award was the move beneath it: heritage turned from a fond memory into a competitive advantage, giving a beloved old brand a way to feel current without spending the affection it had spent forty years earning.
Client:
Heineken Romania
Industry:
Food and Beverages
Project type:
Rebranding — Brand Repositioning
Date:
2016
Services:
Brand Audit; Design Audit; Brand Positioning; Brand and Portfolio Architecture; Packaging Design; Digital Design; Communication Design; Brand Guidelines; Brand Name, Narratives and Voice
Awards:
Red Dot Awards Packaging Design Winner in 2017
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