THE OPPORTUNITY

UCBC is a leading craft brewery with locations in St. Louis, Missouri, and Wolnzach, Germany.

UCBC has focused on making quality beers while being intentional global citizens, placing an emphasis on sustainability and contributing to the local community. In addition to creating quality beer, the company also runs three beerhalls, two of which are located in St. Louis and one in Germany. 

When UCBC sat down with Novel, the brand had outgrown its website and was looking for a marketing firm that would help create an immersive experience while making it easy to find things like the food menu, event information, facts about their beer, and venue rentals. 

UCBC hired Novel for our ability to create meaningful experiences through storytelling and smart UX design.

website

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE REFLECTS REVERENCE AND WELL-CRAFTED

UCBC needed a video, photography, and a new website that would create an immersive experience and provide customers with the information they needed for events, menus, locations, and beers. Over the years UCBC had outgrown its old site and it needed a new solution with easy navigation and simple content management. After reviewing digital reports, we determined the highest traffic pages of the website and let historical data inform how we prioritized the content and flow of the new site. Then we did workshops with the team to discover their business priorities so we could align the function of the website with their business growth goals. Finally, we did market research with the beer enthusiast audience on platforms like Untapped to really understand the mindset of this passionate, highly engaged craft beer enthusiast so we could make sure the website copy and priorities resonated with this audience. 

UX MEETS UNIQUE

CONVERSIONS HAPPEN AT THE INTERSECTION OF HIGHLY ENGAGING DESIGN AND EASE-OF-USE

Our UX and visual design teams worked in unison to connect the dots between the visual design and a seamless user experience, weaving together aesthetic and UX design in a thoughtful way. This involves the careful integration of information while thinking about aspects of branding, usability, and function. It was important that people who came to the UCBC site got the information they needed and could easily take actions like buying event tickets or reserving event space. We also wanted the website to be an immersive experience of spending time in beerhalls and a celebration of the well-crafted beers that said UCBC apart.

IMMERSIVE ON-BRAND EXPERIENCE

video and photography that immerses you in the ucbc brand

We wanted people who came to the website to feel what it was like to be in a beer hall or watch the process of the beer being made. We worked with the team to storyboard UCBC moments that would bring customers into the UCBC brand experience. We created photography and videos that reflect the inspiring, fun, smart, energetic elements of the UCBC experience and brand. And then we strategically placed those images in the website experience to show (vs. tell) what it feels like to be a part of a UCBC event or sip one of their beers in a beer hall with friends.