Turning the table - Ari Elkouby

Ari Elkouby, Chief Creative Officer, Wunderman Thompson Canada, juror of this year's Applied Arts Advertising Awards, shares a favourite campaign of his from 2023 featuring Cold Ones a non-alcoholic beer.  Below, Ari discusses the agency's approach to designing and launching the brand.

Cold Ones is a non-alcoholic beer with a name everyone already knows, with drinking directions never heard of before. We launched the brand by being the opposite of what every other now-alcoholic beer is: unrefined and irresponsible, and by just giving consumers one simple choice. In short, we created the first non-alcoholic beer made to be enjoyed irresponsibly.

We developed a unique design system that would stand out on store shelves and could be brought to life across our packaging, website, social channels and clothing line. We used imagery representing the best moments that people associate with drinking beer and put them at the centre of the brand, creating nostalgia for a time that you may think has passed—but now it doesn’t have to. To cast a wide net, we used a series of images rather than a static can design, allowing consumers to choose a can based on the moments and memories that resonate with them.

When crafting our wordmark, we put “0.0%” front and centre by converting the double “O’s” in Cold Ones into zeroes. We created an additional version where the double zeroes and “enjoy irresponsibly” tagline form a winking smiley face as a tongue-in-cheek nod to the brand positioning. Unlike every other non-alcoholic brand in the market, we made a conscious effort not to take ourselves too seriously—and we made it our mission to encourage our audience to do the same.

OO let's crack one open now!