Little Creatures taps into brand potential

Microbrewers Gage Roads Brewing and Little Creatures have featured in the top five emerging brands in the WA Business News branding survey every year for the past four years.

However, Little Creatures appears to be taking its brand to another level this year, featuring in three different categories of the survey.

The brainchild of Howard Cearns and Nic Trimboli, Little Creatures came third in the emerging brand results, number six in the best employer brands and entered the list of top 10 most recognised brands for the first time.

Chairman of advertising agency Braincells and director of Little Creatures, Howard Cearns, says that a lot of the initial thinking that went towards building the brand was around the product and the people inside the brand, rather than traditional image building.

The opening of the Little Creatures Dining Hall on Brunswick Street in Melbourne last week promises to expand the brand recognition of the microbrewer even further.

Mr Cearns said the 'neighbourhood approach' marketing that Little Creatures has cultivated in Fremantle and Perth will be replicated in the Fitzroy venue.

"We tend to just primarily look around our own neighbourhood...if there's an organisation in Freo or WA that we can contribute to, we help out," Mr Cearns said.

"In Melbourne we'll do a bit around Fitzroy, we already set up a community bike hire. They're Little Creatures bikes that people can ride around."

The opening of the upmarket lounge bar, Creatures Loft, in the building adjacent to the current brewery in Fremantle, and the expansion of its brewing capacity, planned to be operational in a few weeks, have also contributed to the visibility of the brand.

Its ASX-listed parent company, Little World Beverages Ltd, achieved solid financial results in six months ending December 2007, including a 20.6 per cent boost in total revenue.