Symington Family Estates is a Certified B Corporation and a founding member of The Porto Protocol and ADVID. The business has a series of ambitious goals for 2025 as their response to the climate emergency crisis.
To that end, every design solution that we work on for Symington’s must have sustainability at its core. For example, designs cannot specify any single-use plastic, and the recycling content of every piece of packaging must be high. When it came to designing a radical NPD like Cockburn’s Tails of the Unexpected, Symington’s mandates were kept firmly top of mind.
Symington’s had an ambitious plan to reinvigorate port’s image in consumers’ minds and bring innovation to the category. There was an opportunity to reposition the product to appeal to younger consumers, particularly in the on-trade where the cocktail and craft spirits scene is vibrant.
Using the maverick brand Cockburn’s, the brief was to take Port out of its comfort zone: to be bold, in a world of old. To introduce a cool, modern and disruptive interpretation of port. To have a sense of warmth, wit, and irreverence. To be accessible, not stuffy. To break category rules. To inject storytelling. To be modern but respectful of its heritage.
To be artisanal and craft. And underlying all of this, to align to SFE’s strict sustainability guidelines when it comes to packaging materials.
The creative strategy was to use Cockburn’s distinctive brand asset of the cockerel as the hero of the pack, and celebrate the brand’s innate irreverence and playfulness through detailed illustrations. Each variant is a cacophony of ideas and creativity. The bottles are made from 100% recycled glass, and the labels fashioned from recyclable stock.