Alaskans wake up to a strange brew
At the market in Anchorage, one package is hard to miss. It's the one with three penises on it.
With a fanciful label designed by Ray Troll, the Three Peckered Billy Goat blend is actually the second-best seller for the Raven's Brew coffee company. The most popular blend? That would be Deadman's Reach. In an industry that sometimes takes itself a little too seriously, Raven's Brew has managed to thrive by marketing Alaskan irreverence along with some seriously good beans. Somehow, it works.
Founded in Ketchikan in 1992, Raven's Brew appeals to the "creative, irreverent, and those without strict cultural boundaries," according to company spokesperson, Leslie Morgan.
Morgan says that drawing on Ray Troll to develop a look for the brand was an easy decision. Troll had a studio in Ketchikan and his work was already widely licensed on t-shirts and other products. His imaginative illustrations of fish and marine life (like the popular Spawn till You Die) had become a signature look of the Pacific Northwest.
The style is a sort of "frontier punk ichthyology." Troll, a member of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators, delights in scientific detail and subjecting marine life to sometimes moral consequences.
"Ray chose us as much as we chose him. He is a friend of ours and his work is perfect for coffee," says Morgan.
Troll has since created eight labels for Raven's Brew.
There's a price to pay for all that attitude though. Some supermarkets won't carry the Three Peckered Billy Goat packages. "Some are offended by it," Morgan admits.
This isn't Starbucks
That some mega-markets won't carry the brand (you won't find it at the massive Fred Meyer's) doesn't seem to bother Morgan. Nor does the fact that Raven's Brew doesn't own a flagship cafe to showcase the brand--or any other cafe for that matter. The business model aims to cultivate a known and consistent customer base, rather than get the product everywhere at all costs. Raven's Brew is primarily a specialty wholesale business, with retail on the side, mostly in the form of direct sales through the company's website.
Alaska's tourism industry has been essential to building a customer base. When Raven's Brew was founded back in the 1990s, cruise ships brought some 350,000 passengers a year to the shops and cafes of Ketchikan. Today, that number is closer to a million. Many new customers discover the locally branded packaging while stretching their legs in town, which is a first port of call, and then seek out the product in specialty stores near their home.
Via www.ravensbrew.com:
Raven's Brew coffee is available in the U.S., Canada and Guam. Ray Troll's wonderfully over-caffeinated work is on exhibit at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture in Seattle, through May 31.
