Green Flash Brewing Co. Debuts National Marketing Platform

Online, December 11, 2012 (Newswire.com) - This week, Mike and Lisa Hinkley - co-founders of the San Diego-based craft brewery, Green Flash Brewing Co., are pleased to officially release the complete "Flash of Genius" marketing campaign. This integrated brand platform has been in development for several months, and is designed to increase brand and product awareness among craft beer consumers. Each of the twelve Flash of Genius introductions offers a new way for Green Flash to memorably convey the inspiration, "personality" and story behind each of the company's nationally-distributed beers. Through cleverly crafted copy and striking visuals, the campaign simultaneously communicates a wealth of information about the beer as well as the brand's pioneering spirit and passion for brewing excellence through exploration, experimentation and insight.

Green Flash worked closely with San Diego based branding agency, Mth Degree, Inc. to develop a fresh new marketing campaign to perfectly capture and visually convey the Green Flash brand and product identity. Vice President of Marketing and Green Flash Co-founder, Lisa Hinkley spearheaded the project, following an update to the beer's packaging in 2010. "As a growing craft beer brand with increasing US distribution, we felt it was imperative to create an innovative marketing platform that would allow us to share our story with craft beer consumers at the national level," says Hinkley. "We carefully selected a campaign theme that we felt captured the Green Flash Experience - a sense of adventure, discovery and innovation. The campaign messages had to be crafted in a way that would be appealing to our core consumers: craft beer loyalists. Our intention is to convey our company vision in a thought-provoking, story-telling fashion, and I believe we have accomplished that with this campaign. Through Flash of Genius messaging, we are encouraging consumers to continuously discover Green Flash and the inspiration behind our award-winning brews."

The campaign reinforces the message that Green Flash products are unique and exciting, supporting their premium positioning in the market place. Through the Flash of Genius campaign, Hinkley expects to increase craft consumers' product awareness, brand affinity and engagement through multi-channel efforts leading to increased product pull-through at the retail level.

The Mth Degree was an instrumental partner in creating this campaign for the Green Flash brand. Mike and Lisa Hinkley, along with Brewmaster Chuck Silva, shared each beer's unique story with the team from Mth Degree, while hosting focused tastings of each beer in the lineup. Their marketing team took cues from Mike, Lisa and Chuck's behind-the-scenes chronicles, inspirations, brewing process details and tasting notes, to develop a personality and theme unique to every beer.

"We developed the Flash of Genius campaign to spark a connection in the hearts and minds of craft beer lovers everywhere, said Steven Morris, President, Mth Degree. "Inspired by secrets from the Brewmaster, we crafted a unique storyline and personality for each beer, highlighting the special brewing processes and ingredients that make each beer a 'Flash of Genius'."

The campaign concept is best defined with the introductory copy: "After you drink a Green Flash beer, you are hit by the 'Flash of Genius' and you see things in a new light (a green light, of course). Not only will you unleash all the secrets of craft brewing, you will heighten your senses and become an enlightened beer drinker." Now, behind every Green Flash Beer, there is a Flash of Genius, the taglines for each beer, numbered in order of their release date:

#1 - West Coast IPA - We put West Coast on the map
#2 - Barleywine - An Enlightened Beer Lover Knows Patience is a Virtue
#3 - Le Freak - Our Belgo-American Freak - First of its Kind
#4 - Hop Head Red - This perfect 10 is a Hop Head Turner
#5 - Imperial IPA - Our Imperial IPA is the King of the Mountain of Hops
#6 - Saison Diego - Our Saison is a San Diego Beach House Ale
#7 - Trippel - Our first Belgian made the Hall of Fame with a Trippel Play
#8 - Grand Cru - Grand Riches are measured by the Cheers of Friends and Family
#9 - Double Stout - It took Two Centuries to land on this modern American Stout
#10 - Palate Wrecker - Our Heavy Hitter packs 6 lbs. of Hops per Barrel
#11 - Rayon Vert - Brettanomyces is not a Dinosaur
#12 - Friendship Brew-The Main Ingredient in our Belgian-American brew is Friendship

Known for crafting cutting edge and experimental brews, Green Flash consistently caters to the craft beer loyalist, who appreciates the process of self-discovery. They deliberately mirrored this approach when introducing "Flash of Genius" to the market. The campaign began a "soft" rollout in June 2012, with a scattering of ads appearing in a select group of craft beer trade publications, on the Green Flash website as downloadable PDFs, via e-newsletters delivered to the core group of brand loyalists - consumers that have subscribed to the Green Flash newsletter via the web - and as a subtly-changing cover page and profile picture graphic on Facebook.

With all the front-line beers in the Green Flash lineup now represented by an image, catch phrase and story, the brewery is ready to roll out the complete Flash of Genius campaign. It is a comprehensive marketing effort which includes a growing array of Flash of Genius-branded merchandise, and point of sale materials such as coasters, stickers, metal signs and posters now available to Green Flash distributors and retail accounts.

The campaign is being rolled out nationally beginning in November 2012 and running through 2013. New "Flashes of Genius" will be added, to support changes and growth within the Green Flash national beer lineup. All 13 introductions from the Flash of Genius campaign are available upon request in high resolution files, and most of the images can now be viewed and downloaded via the Green Flash website: www.greenflashbrew.com/ourbeers.

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