Southern Comfort

Brown-Forman challenged us to help Southern Comfort—a brand with 140 years of history—begin a fresh conversation with consumers. After years of campaigns and packaging built around market trends, the brand had lost focus and drinkers no longer connected to its offering or story.

Our solution was to work collaboratively with the Southern Comfort team, shedding novelty and artifice in favor of meaningful messaging and timeless simplicity. The result is an identity and packaging system that allows the brand to stand proudly and confidently in owning who they are: A Category of One.

From the new brand messaging and bold iconography to the streamlined label and sturdy bottle silhouette, the new Southern Comfort is built to stand confidently and comfortably on the shelf.

In building the new Southern Comfort, we challenged the brand team to consider the entirety of the brand’s history and visual equity, rather than simply focusing on refining the previous packaging. We also engaged consumers in a dialogue around the brand’s personality and values, gaining insight in incorporating those aspects of the brand into a new identity.

We explored a range of creative solutions for the brand, reigniting and refining elements from the past that communicate Southern Comfort’s unique history. At the same time, we created new language and iconography that speaks directly to contemporary drinkers. The combination of heritage assets and new messaging clearly communicates the brand’s enduring legacy and its fresh, confident personality.

Southern Comfort is a global brand that offers a variety of products around the world. We helped to build a system of unique products, responding to cultural cues, history and consumer preferences in territories including Germany, the UK, Africa and Australia. In addition to crafting global market-specific packaging, we built brand guides and briefed regional creative agencies to ensure the brand message, personality and spirit is communicated consistently worldwide.