Package Design | packagedesignmag.com

(April 2009) posted on Thu Oct 08, 2009

By Ron Romanik

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The Steaz brand of all-natural and organic beverages is only in its seventh year of existence, but its owners have no qualms about competing with the larger 100-year-old brands that dominate the beverage aisles. Based in Newtown, PA, Steaz has experienced an average of 70% growth each year mainly through natural food stores. Distributed nationwide, Steaz has become the No. 1 organic soft drink and No. 1 natural energy drink by volume in the U.S., and is ready to go head-to-head with the major mainstream beverage manufacturers.

Steaz cofounder Eric Schnell recognized that his brand needed a "face lift" to take on the challenges of the future. They looked at proposals from six package design firms before selecting New York City's Wallace Church, headed by principals Stan Church and Rob Wallace. Schnell believed that the Steaz identity had to be translated for a wider market, elegantly simplified, and nailed down unequivocally to look like the packages belong side-by-side with the soft drink giants. "We really felt the packaging needed to successfully express that," says Schnell.

The Steaz name grew out of a play on the words soda and tea, as organic green teas with light carbonation and mainstream soda flavors were the bedrock of the company's launch. In a fundamental way, the name means "Soda-plus-teas," and replacing the ending "s" with the "z" felt like an added note of strength to founders Eric Schnell and Steven Kessler.

Serendipitously and unbeknownst to the founders, the word "steez" at the time was a youthful slang term for a unique style with ease, particularly popular in the hip-hop, snowboarding, and X Games crowd. The brand positioning was also youth-oriented, and over time as the brand became known among that crowd the slang word's spelling migrated over to "steaz."

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