How we helped the win hearts and stomachs in a place where everybody drinks wine and eats schnitzels

How do you make craft beer popular in a wine region? It’s a real challenge and the Golar family took it at heart.

Vasja Golar is a crafter brewer from Eastern Slovenia. He lives with his family in a town next to Austria where people love to eat pork schnitzels and drink wine, as the region is famous for its vineyards and wineries.

But Vasja thought that it would be really nice to offer to his hometown something different. Something that would bring a much needed breeze of fresh air in the town’s eating and drinking options. So the Golar family decided to create the first beer restaurant in town.

Of course, it was not only about the drinks. The Golars imagined that people would actually enjoy eating something new and modern, for a change. That’s why they decided to offer contemporary European cuisine instead of the widely spread traditional one. It was a risk worth taking!

And because Edgar simply loves the small brands, we put our hearts in crafting the Golars brand story and making their beer restaurant famous. How did we do it? Let us tell you the details.

Branding and storytelling for the beer restaurant pioneers

When you want to inspire people to try something new, it’s not enough to tell them it exists. You have to explain why it’s good. And the best way to do that is with a powerful and engaging story.

That’s why we first started exploring the family history in order to find the authentic brand story of the Golars. It’s the beating heart of their business that had the power to make their restaurant a real hit. We just had to discover it and share it with the world.

In the case of the Golar family, we didn’t need to dig too deep. We quickly discovered that grandpa Golar was a famous local poet and writer! The brand story jewel shone through immediately. His writings then became the inspiration for the brand story and the basis for the visuals.

To tie in the legacy of the grandpa, we used characters from his works to reveal the brand’s essence. This is how the two animal characters of the Golar restaurant were born – the snail and the cricket. And we made them the heroes of the Golar story. Their special mission was to bring beer to the city of Gornja Radgona. Boy, they sure succeeded!

Once we had the curious story from the brand history, we could jump into creating visuals stories and use them for our specialty trick: transmedia storytelling. We shared them across platforms online and in various places offline: in the printed materials, in the restaurant, on t-shirts…

The results for Golar

How did we understand we’ve done a good job? We didn’t need to analyze too long. We created seven micro-stories with five heroes and one villain.

Then, let’s talk social media. The Golar Facebook page got 500 new likes in a matter of three days!

And most of all, the restaurant was packed from the moment it opened. People were just ready to embrace the innovative and slightly quirky Golar family and its inspiring and recognizable brand. So they were excited to try the new recipes and the craft beer! With such an evocative brand story, people could relate to the Golar brand and thus instantly become fans – and inspire others to do the same.

And Vasja Golar certainly was happy with the results: “I love the cool stories and the little visuals the Edgar team created for us. Makes my job communicating our vision much easier. And fun!”

And happy customers make Edgar happy.

Edgar likes practical lessons

As we took seriously the mission of the Golars, it became our own mission to build up a strong brand for a beer restaurant in a wine-rich region. When you consider that Gornja Radgona is a small Slovenian town, it can look like quite a difficult task. Especially when you have in mind that even in big cities, craft beers and gourmet hamburgers are still exotic choices.

The biggest challenge for Edgar? To convince people who are used to two kinds of beer to go for craft beers. In a restaurant with no schnitzels. Crazy!

But the best part of our work for the Golars was pinpointing and unfolding the brand story from the family history. There is no bigger pleasure for Edgar than to see how it all comes together in a flowing and inspiring brand narrative that immediately catches eyes and hearts.

Check out the visual case study for further inspiration!

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