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Narragansett Beer

Early in 2005, a successful local businessman purchased the rights to Narragansett, a beer that was brewed in Rhode Island for some 90 years dating back to the late 1800s.

The brand, once the largest selling beer in New England, had been relatively dormant since 1983, with units limited to 16-ounce cans, and had not been marketed or promoted by its former owners. As a result, the giant marketing and promotional budgets of national brews like Budweiser, Miller and Coors had overwhelmed Narragansett to the point where the beer didn’t even have a 2% share in New England.

D&S was asked to help relaunch the brand. The Agency redesigned all packaging to give it a more contemporary look and researched ways to tie its history to modern-day New England. The beer’s reemergence has proven tremendously successful thus far, and the agency has secured multiple full-page, four-color features in print as well as several television stories. Initial sales are exceeding expectations and the distributor is seeing increasing demand for the product, now available on tap and in 12-ounce bottles and cans in addition to the 16-ounce can.