Viking Malt:
From Strategy to Brand

Europe’s 5th largest maltster, Viking Malt, had recently refreshed their business strategy. The company was already highly appreciated by craft breweries, but in the future it wanted to achieve a more prominent role as an expert partner to the biggest global beer brands.

The strategy was clear – but how to communicate it as a story and project it into a brand?

After thorough background study, our creative strategists and Viking Malt’s global leadership team organised a workshop where we dove into the new business strategy piece by piece. As is our style, we weren’t afraid to question conventions or to call for further and further simplification. Luckily, the malt vikings had no qualms with our approach, and together we ended up with a juicy recipe to start fermenting the brand.

The new Viking Malt brand story got the headline More through Malt. The essence of the story lies in the unique significance of malt: it’s not a mere barley-derivative, but a key element that plays an essential role in the flavour and environmental impact of beer, and in the innovation and employment capabilities of the entire value chain. Viking Malt acts as an integrator to convey all of malt’s possibilities to breweries, farmers, and other partners at all points of contact.

We started with the story and elaborated it into consistent applications. In our hands, Viking Malt’s entire visual identity got a refresh: including the colour palette, logo, and fonts. To produce quality visual assets to communicate the refreshed brand, we organised a two-day photography session at various Viking Malt sites and partnering farms.

Our web design team overhauled the Vikingmalt.com website. The goal was to create a site that serves all different stakeholders more logically, so we updated the entire structure, along with creating new verbal and visual content to align with the overall More through Malt brand concept.

The brand work expanded from the digital realm to the physical, too: we created new designs for malt packaging sacks and malthouse staff uniforms to tell the story of the new brand.

Finally, we compiled the entire brand work into a nifty digital brand guide. Viking Malt’s own marketing staff and their chosen partners can now access all brand guidelines, elements and assets through a browser-based online brand guide. By making the guide easy to reach and to apply, we ensure that Viking Malt’s brand and message will stay consistent in the long run.