Ocean Spray reveals first major brand overhaul in 20-plus years

• Ocean Spray Cranberries Inc. has refreshed its brand identity for the first time in greater than twenty years because it looks to spotlight a “wildly unusual” approach to culture, creative and connecting with consumers, per a press release. 
• The brand worked with creative studio Stone Strategy & Design to update its system of designs and visuals, spanning logo, illustrations, tone of voice, typography and photography, with a concentrate on the “grit and maverick nature” of the 95-year-old co-op.
• As a part of the refresh, Ocean Spray has modified its approach to promoting, partnerships, licensing and product innovation, including a recent collaboration with Absolut on a ready-to-drink cocktail.

Ocean Spray is the newest CPG brand to ride a refresh wave that first crested throughout the pandemic period as marketers of legacy brands looked to reconnect with comfort-seeking consumers. For the brand update, Ocean Spray worked to remain true to its legacy and brand equity while engaging with a recent generation, in line with Eliza Sadler, head of brand elevation at Ocean Spray. The approach is analogous to how other brands have addressed updates.

“Taking on the duty to redefine the brand identity of a virtually 95-year-old company is something we didn’t take flippantly. Guided by the need to point out up in wildly unusual ways and be unapologetically offbeat, allowed us to lean into what makes the co-op so unique,” Sadler said in the press release.

The co-op and partner Stone Strategy & Design focused on a vision of the brand as “wildly unusual,” giving a contemporary spin to every brand touchpoint. Instead of stock photography, the brand recreated the fruit-filled wave of the brand’s logo by manipulating water and fruit with a “one-of-a-kind mechanism” that helped produce a more “perfectly imperfect” image. In kind, the brand opted for printer-press-inspired typography and candid-style imagery of farmers.

Starting this month, Ocean Spray will roll out the refresh across most of its signature products. The brand’s recent approach to marketing builds on recent successes just like the launch of Chocolate Dipped Cranberry Bites, its first zero-sugar beverage and a limited-edition Cran x Dragon Fruit mix, per the discharge. The brand won a Cannes award for its 2022 “Power Your Holidays” ad. In other innovations, Ocean Spray teamed with Pernod Ricard vodka brand Absolut on a line canned vodka-cranberry cocktails to money in on the ready-to-drink cocktail trend.

While that is Ocean Spray’s first major update to its visual identity in greater than twenty years, the brand has needed to grapple with the changing marketing landscape in recent years. In October 2020, the marketer teamed with Nathan Apodaca to recreate a viral video that featured the TikTok creator skateboarding while lip-syncing to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” and sipping from a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry. Later that month, Ocean Spray built on the momentum by releasing its first national campaign targeting Hispanic consumers.